Cardi B is likes to clear the air and once again she is setting the record straight about her profound impact on the rap game, making it clear that her success has paved the way for a new wave of female rappers. During a candid late-night X Spaces session on Thursday (Jan. 18), the Bodak Yellow star shared her thoughts on the toll online bullying has had on her mental health, her upcoming album, and the undeniable influence she’s had on the music industry.
The Bronx bred emcee was quick to shut down speculation that her marriage to Offset was behind the delay of her new music. “I’ve seen a lot of tweets saying that the reason why my album wasn’t out, why I stopped doing a lot of things, was because of my marriage. Truthfully and honestly, it wasn’t,” she clarified. “It was the online hate that really took a toll on me.”
Get this, Cardi explained that the bullying she faced online deeply affected her personal life and career, mentioning her ongoing legal battle with blogger Tasha K. “I don’t think you guys understood how much the internet bullying took a toll on me for a very long time,” she admitted. She also shared a painful memory from her legal case, revealing, “When I won the case and my lawyer was saying that I was suicidal… that wasn’t just for the case. That was really my life.”
Despite these struggles, Cardi is pressing forward and gearing up for the release of her long-awaited sophomore album, the follow-up to her chart-topping 2018 debut, Invasion of Privacy. She also used the moment to address critics who’ve downplayed her influence on the industry, especially when it comes to the rise of women in Hip-Hop. “Even just the other day, when people were trying to say, like, ‘Oh, Cardi didn’t open no doors and blah blah blah.’ I don’t give a f**k about what y’all talking about,” Cardi stated firmly. “Labels literally have told me in my face, ‘We started signing female rappers because of the success that you have.’”
What’s more, Cardi pointed to her 2017 breakout hit, “Bodak Yellow,” as a turning point that showed the industry that female rappers were not only viable but could also be major moneymakers. “It took Bodak Yellow to show labels that you could really make money with female rappers; that female rappers are the new wave,” she explained. “Labels were being real hard around 2017 with female rappers. No matter how good you rap, no matter how good you look… it just wasn’t being done.”
Check this part out. Even though many in the industry “would never admit it,” Cardi said, she’s confident that she set the blueprint for how today’s female rappers market themselves, style-wise and in terms of their public personas. “I have to realize that’s why people wanted me gone so bad or bullied me so bad—to the point that I don’t believe that in myself, so everybody else could take it from me,” she reflected. “Well, this year, I feel like I’m over that. I feel like nothing could affect me anymore. And I’m throwing arrows, throwing straight arrows… not letting nobody, no bih, no nia, no nothing, f**king with me.”
As for what’s next up, as Cardi gears up to release her highly anticipated sophomore album, she remains unapologetically confident in her place in the industry, and her message is clear: her success wasn’t just a milestone for her, but for an entire generation of women in rap.
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