Towards the end of March, Cardi B, the social media luminary turned reality star turned indisputable rap star, took to Twitter to dole out both a complaint and a command: “I haven’t been to New York in a MONTH!!” she wrote. “I miss my my moms Ya motherfuckers better love this album."
On the one hand, it’s this very sort of candor and lack of pretentiousness that made Cardi B such an adored figure. Unlike many of her famous colleagues, Cardi B doesn’t shy away from telling the world exactly how she feels. It’s an endearing quality, one that has led to her being deemed “the people’s diva” as writer Brittany Spanos astutely described her as last year. However, depending on how close enough attention you’ve paid to the Bronx native, you may have noticed that she complains a whole lot about the fame she so actively courted.
In Spanos’ Rolling Stone profile of Cardi B, published last fall, the rapper laments about a since-deleted tweet that referred to Kim Jong Un as “Won Tung Soup,” noting, "I used to tell myself that I will always be myself” before going on to add, "Little by little, I'm feeling like I'm getting trapped and muted."
Later, she admitted of her fear of failure: "If you go broke and lose your career, it's bad – and everybody is talkin' shit about it! At least if you lose your 9-to-5 you don't got millions of people judging you and talking shit while you lost your job."
At the time, Cardi B hinted that she is consumed with people talking shit about her. Since then, she has all but confirmed it. In her cover story for the March issue of Cosmopolitan, she reiterated much of the same complaints—this time about her relationship with Offset.
On deciding to stay with him in spite of footage of him suggesting he cheated on her, Cardi B explained to writer Jazmine Hughes that, despite all cries to the contrary, “I don’t have low self-esteem.” She went on to confirm what shouldn’t have required explanation: she has every right to work things out with her partner and doesn’t owe anyone else an explanation.
“I’m not your property,” she noted. “This is my life.”
It is, but the problem with this interview, the Rolling Stone interview, and that whiny tweet about how we best like her album ‘cause she misses her mama is that people—especially wealthy celebrities—should grasp that they are the creators of their own madness. When Cardi B was on the rise, she conveyed, by way of profilesinThe Fader magazine, that one of her most indelible skills was her incredible media savvy.
This is a woman who knew her status as a social media star would earn her more money than stints on Love & Hip Hop would—meaning she would only appear for a certain period of time to boost name recognition. She wouldn’t feature her actual music on the show because, as she once explained, she understood that artists on the show don’t have their music taken seriously by the masses. Moreover, she also knew being an independent artist would be more financially beneficial until it wasn’t, hence why she waited to sign with a major record deal.
If she is shrewd enough to know of all of this, I don’t for the life of me understand why she still hasn’t learned to stop searching her name on Twitter and engaging in verbal knife fights with detractors online.
In one of the greatest diss records of all-time, dolphin note hitter and closeted rapper Mariah Carey infamously said, “Ain’t gon’ feed ya, I’mma let ya starve.” I realize I may sound like a fake ass Iyanla Vanzant throughout this essay, but Belcalis, beloved, maybe apply this bar to your life in order to improve it? While many outlets (including this one) will gleefully post Cardi B’s responses to haters because it’s good content, generally speaking, purposely searching one’s name in order to combat detractors is the not the recipe for sanity.
With a megahit single, a growing list of high profile magazine covers, an opening act slot on the Puerto Rican Frankie Lymon, aka Bruno Mars, tour, and a highly anticipated debut album (with a stunning cover, no less), her star is only likely to brighten. I’m not privy to the Illuminati meetings, but can someone sit her down and remind her this is the life she chose and to protect herself accordingly? No one knows what certain positions in life are like until they’re in them, but everyone is mildly familiar with what exactly the tenets of celebrity (no matter the level) entail.
To wit, in that November interview with The Cut, Cardi B said of celebrities who have meltdowns, “I see why people go crazy. This shit is not what it fucking seems.” She then added “But I can’t complain.” So much for that.
Cardi made herself into a different kind of celebrity, but it may be time for her to take cues from other A-listers on how to handle that fame.
