LUANDA: US rapper and songwriter Nicki Minaj ignored international critics Saturday and performed at a concert linked to the family of Angola’s long-ruling President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

The 33-year-old hip-hop star entertained several thousand of people at a Christmas concert in the Angolan capital Luanda despite calls from rights groups to cancel the tour, which they saw as an endorsement of the authoritarian rule of dos Santos.

The concert was hosted by the Angola’s largest mobile phone company, which is part owned by the dos Santos family.

Before going on stage, Minaj posted a photo of herself in a jumpsuit and draped in the black-and-red flag of Angola on photo-sharing service Instagram.

Concert organizers said they had sold 6,000 tickets for the concert, which was held in the 12,000-seat Coqueiros Stadium where she shared the stage with several local acts.

Minaj had come in for criticism for agreeing to perform, with Human Rights Foundation president Thor Halvorssen saying this week that she had “no good reason... to do business with the corrupt Angolan dictatorship and endorse the ruler’s family company.”

Jeffery Smith of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights center also accused Minaj of “following in the footsteps of Mariah Carey, callously taking money from a dictator.”

Fellow US singer Carey was criticized in 2013 for performing in front of dos Santos, who has governed the southern African nation for 36 years.

Dos Santos, 73, has been accused of overseeing corruption, misrule and intimidation in a country that suffers endemic poverty despite being Africa’s second-largest oil producer.