Last week saw the release of Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s “Barbie World,” a new take on Aqua’s classic “Barbie Girl” recorded for the Barbie movie. It turns out that fans have star Margot Robbie to thank in part for the song’s existence.
In a new feature about the music of the Barbie movie, Rolling Stone notes how outraged fans were when Aqua said last year that their song wouldn’t be in the movie. The publication continued, “Even though it wasn’t in the script, Gerwig’s plan all along was to find a place for it, especially since Robbie and others were begging for it.”
Margot Robbie said, “I was like, ‘Greta, how are we going to incorporate this song? We can’t do a Barbie movie and not have a nod to Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl.’ It has to be in there.’ And [Greta] was like, ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to find a cool way to incorporate it.’ And then, when she was like, ‘Guess who’s going to do the remix of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”? Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice.’ I was like, ‘Together? Are you joking?!’ I just knew immediately that all my girlfriends were going to lose their minds.”
Mark Ronson also made note how how natural a fit Minaj was for the song, saying, “I feel like people have been asking Nicki to rhyme over some version of ‘Barbie Girl’ for 15 years now.”
Check out the full feature here.