Cardi B, fresh off the release of her new single “Up,” joined Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show on Thursday to talk—among other things—the inspiration behind the track, her instaclassic Megan Thee Stallion collab, and her impending sophomore album.
“I really wanted to have Megan [on “WAP”] but I didn’t know her that well,” Cardi told Fallon when asked how last year’s ubiquitous hit came together. “Our stylists linked us up and when our stylists linked us up, we kicked it off really well. We were saying ‘I got a song for you’ and I said ‘I got a song for you’ and she loved my song and she hopped on it and we made herstory.”
Moving on to “Up,” Fallon asked Cardi if she felt pressure to follow the enormous success of “WAP,” prompting Cardi to pinpoint the specific kind of pressure one feels at her level of success.
“Yeah, I do feel pressure but I feel pressure from my fans who are like ‘Alright, we want another song,’” she said. “The pressure was even more big because I haven’t released a solo single in, like, two years. And I was like, oh my god, I just wanna go top 10 and it’s predicted to go probably No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 so I’m like, oh wow, I exceeded my limit. So I’m extremely happy.”
Asked about the song’s hook—which utilizes a phrase that’s common in Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama—Cardi credited Offset with bringing it to her attention before joking about its meaning to her.
“So, have you ever taken a poop, right, and it don’t come out? It’s just up and it’s stuck,” she said.
From there, Fallon asked for Cardi to give some details on her in-progress new album, which she says is her main focus at the moment.
“I really want my next project or anything that’s related to music to just be my album,” she said. “I just gotta focus on a couple of more songs and do all the music videos … We just gotta make sure.”
Cardi also discussed her part in this year’s F9, the difficulties of shooting music videos during the pandemic, and her Cardi Tries series. Catch the full interview up top.
And below, see Cardi and Fallon link up for a round of Mimic Challenge:
