Cardi B is a human being — a multi-diamond-certified human being, but a human being, nonetheless. Cardi B simply wishes BardiGang, her most fervent fans, and the general population at large would remember that when questioning why it has taken six years and counting for the Bronx-bred rapper to deliver her sophomore studio album, the long-awaited follow-up to her record-obliterating debut Invasion Of Privacy.
“Like yesterday, I was scrolling through TikTok and a b*tch made me cry,” Cardi B told Rolling Stone as the cover star for its June 2024 issue. “She was just like, ‘She has got to give it up. She’s better off being an influencer. You was cosplaying being a rapper. Because you don’t take it seriously. That’s why you don’t put out your music.’ And it’s like, I take my music so f*cking seriously that that’s why I don’t put it out. Because if it’s not perfect to my ear, if every f*cking word doesn’t sound like it’s pronounced right, if the beat is overpowering the words or the words is overpowering the beat, I don’t want to put it out.”
She added, “When you give so much and somebody just drags it down, like you’re just playing with your p*ssy all day, just watching Netflix all f*cking day long, it’s very hurtful.”
Elsewhere in the Mankaprr Conteh-written profile, an unnamed Cardi B rep confirmed that “an album in 2024 is still the plan,” and much of the story is dedicated to observing Cardi B hard at work in the studio — tormented over getting it right because she cares so deeply.
The tear-inducing TikTok is referenced again toward the end, when Cardi B showed Conteh an offer to perform a show for $1.5 million.
“If I was doing things for money, I would put out music every month because nothing pays me more than shows,” Cardi said. “I’m turning down these concerts because I don’t got no new music.”
So far in 2024, Cardi B has released “Like What (Freestyle)” and “Enough (Miami).”