Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion became a hot button topic when the duo released the NSFW song “WAP” alongside a racy video. Just about everyone had their opinions about the track, from Tucker Carlson to Tiger King‘s Carole Baskin. But Cardi reveled her label nearly pulled the plug on the single, citing its provocative lyrics.
In an interview with Hot 97, Cardi discussed the track’s breakout success. According to the rapper, Atlantic Records wasn’t so sure about the raunchy nature of the song. Cardi said executives even asked if Meg would be willing to scrap her feature and do a new verse on a different track, but the rapper persisted:
“I just wanted, like at least a top ten. ‘Cause, it got to the point one time that even my label asked, ‘Yo, are you sure? Because this song, it’s so raunchy. You cannot even play it in certain places.’ I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna make this girl do another verse to another song. She like the song and it’s fire.’ They were like, ‘You know, you’re right. It is what it is.’ And it just exceeded everything.”
Cardi B reveals to @NessaOnAir her label wasn’t confident in #WAP as a single because of its raunchy lyrics. pic.twitter.com/TvpcIgeZRG
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) September 1, 2020
Elsewhere in the interview, Cardi said she had reached out to Lizzo to join her and Meg on the track, but there was one problem — Lizzo was on vacation. Apparently, Cardi couldn’t reach Lizzo in time to secure the feature: “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ because I had a whole vision about how I want to see Lizzo and everything,” Cardi said. “It was so important to me to include different women that are different races and come from different backgrounds, but are so powerful and influential.”
Watch a clip of Cardi’s Hot 97 interview above.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.