Nicki Minaj thinks people who are born "with a silver spoon" in their mouth will struggle in the music industry.

The rapper had a famously difficult childhood. She has called her father abusive and claimed he threatened her mother's life when she was growing up.

Although going through that was hard, Nicki insists it has steeled her to make a success of her life.

"If you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth and you come into this business, you're going to get let down a lot. And it will probably send you crazy," she told Look magazine. "This is only for the mentally strong. If you're not then it's not going to work. So yeah, I mean my childhood was crazy bit it got me to the point where I had so much faith in whatever I was doing. I just always feel where there's a will there's a way, and I've lived my entire life that way."

Whenever Nicki feels tired or like she needs a break, she simply casts her mind back to what she went through as a young girl. She has no intention of returning to such a life.

"You never want to go back to being poor," she said. "Once you have a taste of that you will always be driven, you will always feel like, At any moment I could lose everything and be back to where I was.' I know what that felt like and I don't want to feel that again."