The virtual applause was so loud our democratic institutions shook: In just under a week, Cardi B made an impassioned case to end the government shutdown, put Tomi Lahren in her place, performed onstage in a lime-green corset and no pants, and cemented her status as the moral compass that framers of the Constitution didn’t dare dream of.
At press time more than 73,000 people had signed an unofficial petition to have her give the rebuttal to the State of the Union.
It all started because Cardi doesn’t think people should have to work for free. Earlier this month the rapper turned to Instagram to deliver a rant in which she summed up the true viciousness of the government shutdown better than Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Chuck Todd combined. “This shit is crazy,” she said in the viral clip. “Like, our country is a hellhole right now, all for a fucking wall. And we really need to take this serious.”
Later, in a move from which elected officials and pundits alike could stand to learn, Cardi acknowledged that she didn’t have all the answers, but, she went on, “I feel like we need to take some action. I don’t know what type of action, bitch, because this is not what I do, but bitch, I’m scared.”
The short video was so electric it wasn’t just name-checked on prime-time news but debated in the most rarefied circles of Democratic Party leadership. In a back-and-forth on Twitter, Senators Brian Shatz and Chris Murphy discussed whether or not to retweet the clip. (Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also chimed in.) And this isn’t the first time senators have amplified her clarion calls to action. In April 2018 Senator Bernie Sanders opened a tweet with these immoral words: “Cardi B is right.”
What he said.
After weeks of gridlock and stalemate, it fell to Cardi to illuminate the harm the shutdown had done. Is it a coincidence that the shutdown ended just over a week later? OK, perhaps. But her impact is undeniable.
With that in mind, both Republicans and Democrats could stand to learn from, hm-hmm, the same woman who followed her shutdown address with a video about the desperate scourge of vagina wedgies. Here’s a breakdown of her most essential lessons.
Lesson #1: Give the people what they want.
Thanks to the partial shutdown and a host of Russia-related bad news, 57 percent of people now disapprove of Trump. (A new high—and low.) With her Instagram “address,” Cardi gave a voice to the frustration and anger that millions of Americans feel. People want to feel like they aren’t alone in their struggles and that those with more power and a bigger platform understand them. Cardi’s admission that she’s scared spoke to the precarious condition in which Americans find themselves. Her analysis of the literal state of the union was so direct and spot-on that Stephen Colbert proposed she give a televised response to Trump’s (still-unscheduled) State of the Union.
Elsewhere, representatives like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Senator Robert Torricelli amplified Cardi’s message online. In the age of the Twitter White House, representatives like Ocasio-Cortez in particular have won over Americans, showing that it’s possible to use social media to share actual information not just propaganda. And while they use decidedly different vocabulary to convey their ideas, both women have figured out a way to give the American public what they so desperately crave—realness and honesty.
Lesson #2: Stand up for yourself, especially when Tomi Lahren is involved.
Of course true innovators are always criticized in their time, and conservative media jumped at the chance to snub Cardi. Fox News host Stephanie Hamill dismissed her comments about the government shutdown by suggesting that the rapper’s music was not a source of female empowerment. Conservative political commentator Tomi Lahren also chimed in: “Looks like @iamcardib is the latest genius political mind to endorse the Democrats. HA! Keep it up, guys! #MAGA2020.”
Things got very awkward during Cardi B‘s headlining set on stage at the Rolling Loud festival in Los Angeles Saturday night: Her soon-to-be ex-husband, Offset, interrupted her performance in a very public way to ask her back. And—spoiler alert—she was not into it.
A quick catch-up: Earlier this month, Cardi B announced that she and Offset, who she’s been married to for a year and has a daughter with, were divorcing after rumors surfaced of his cheating. Offset doesn’t seem to be on board with the split, though, and has been posting on Instagram about how much he misses Cardi. He apparently decided to his “win Cardi back” mission to the next level with a grand gesture that seemed to seriously backfire.
During the rapper’s set at Rolling Loud in Los Angeles, Offset made a surprise appearance onstage with a massive sign that read “Take me back Cardi” in white and red roses.
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
He interrupted her show to tell her how badly he wanted to reconcile: “I just want to tell you I’m sorry, bruh,” Offset reportedly told her. “In person. In front of the world.”
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
She just sort of stood there looking (understandably) annoyed as hell.
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
Eventually, he walked offstage and she went on with her show.
Let’s just say fans weren’t impressed, with some drawing an apt parallel with an ex showing up unexpectedly at work and interrupting a meeting.
After the incident, Cardi posted to Instagram to thank her fans for their support and to clarify that she doesn’t want them attacking Offset in the wake of the event.
“Violating my baby’s father is not going to make me feel any better, because at the end of the day that’s still family,” she said. “Unfortunately, we’re going through things, and that’s not private, it became public. I just want things to die down, I just need time so we can see eye to eye…I can’t predict the future.”
She continued in a second post, “I’m not saying that I’m going to get back together with him, I just don’t like that bashing online thing.”
People still aren’t over the altercation between Nicki Minaj and Cardi B that went down at New York Fashion Week on September 7. For the uninitiated, here’s a quick backstory: According to several outlets, Cardi B reportedly became upset with Minaj after she heard the “Barbie Tingz” rapper was criticizing her skills as a mother. TMZ captured video of Cardi B shouting and lunging toward someone believed to be Minaj. Shoes were thrown. It was a heaping pile of drama that tabloids and social media users alike ate up the next day—and the days that followed. What started out as a media-fabricated feud between the two rapers quickly morphed into something real.
But there wasn’t always bad blood between Minaj and Cardi B. In fact, it was around this time last year that Minaj publicly congratulated Cardi B about “Bodak Yellow” reaching number one. The journey from then to now is intense, so let’s revisit it and hope these talented women reach a resolution soon. And by that, we mean a duet.
Below, here’s a complete timeline of Nicki Minaj and Cardi B’s relationship:
March 2017: Minaj reportedly “likes” a post on Instagram poking fun at Cardi B’s rapping style. However, many think this was the result of Photoshop trickery. Shortly after, a screen-shot popped up online of Minaj liking a tweet claiming the supposed Instagram diss was fake.
May 2017: Minaj seemingly takes a swipe at Cardi B in Katy Perry’s song “Swish Swish.” “Silly rap beefs just get me more checks / My life is a movie, I’m never off set / Me and my amigos (no, not Offset),” she says, which many took as a reference to Cardi B’s husband (Migos rapper Offset).
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May 2017: After “Swish Swish,” dropped, Cardi B rants on Instagram Live about “idols becoming rivals.” “I hate this shit, I really, really do,” Cardi said, according to People. “A bitch like me, I was happier when I was macking in the hood. This shit right here is so fake. When I used to be a regular bitch from the Bronx — a hood bitch — when somebody used to be fake to me it was cool because I could approach a bitch and punch her right in her closure… Now that I’m in the industry, you don’t work like that, just have to watch shit go, watch shit go.”
June 2017: Cardi B tweets a friendly reminder not to compare her to other artists.
July 2017: Minaj low-key shows her support for Cardi B by dancing to “Bodak Yellow” in a nightclub.
August 2017: Minaj lays down a verse on London on da Track’s song “No Flags” (featuring Offset and 21 Savage) that some viewed as shade toward Cardi B. “I heard these labels are trying to make another me / Everything you’re getting little hoe is because of me,” Minaj raps in the song. The timing was interesting, seeing as how Cardi B had just inked a deal with Atlantic Records. Minaj cleared the air, though, when she tweeted that she wrote the verse several months prior.
Soon after, Cardi B tweeted, “I don’t bother with these hoes, Don’t let these hoes BOTHER Me,” which fans viewed as a response to this drama. (These are, admittedly, just lyrics to “Bodak Yellow,” so maybe people read too much into the tweet.)
August 2017: Cardi B clears up any rumors she’s feuding with other women in the industry. “I mean, I don’t really want problems with anybody,” she told Billboard. “I don’t want to be, like, queen. I don’t wanna be no this. I don’t wanna be no that. I just wanna make music and make money. I really don’t have time to look at other women, what they doing. I’m myself, you know what I’m saying? Nobody got a problem with me. I don’t got a problem with them. If somebody got a problem I don’t really got to do that whole industry beef. Like, you know, I get it popping with these hands.”
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September 2017: Cardi B says a few pointed things in her verse for G. Eazy’s song “No Limit.” “My career takin’ off / These hoes jogging in place / Swear these hoes run they mouth / How these hoes out of shape? / Can you stop with all the subs? / Bitch I ain’t Jared,” she says. In an interview on The Breakfast Club, Cardi B said the song wasn’t about anyone in particular and denied any beef with Minaj. “She ain’t never f—ed my man,” she said.
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September 2017: Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow” hits number one, making her the first female rapper to do so since Lauryn Hill in 1998. “Congratulations to a fellow NEW YAWKA on a RECORD BREAKING achievement. Bardi, this is the only thing that matters!!! Enjoy it??? @iamcardib,” Minaj tweeted at Cardi B, to which she responded, “Thank you!! This means sooo much coming from you!! ❤️.”
October 2017: Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are featured on the same song, “MotorSport,” alongside the band Migos. In a stream of since-deleted tweets, Minaj shut down any rumblings that she had an issue with Cardi’s appearance on the song.
Cardi later claimed in an interview that Minaj’s verse wasn’t finished when she jumped on “MotorSport.” Keep that in mind for what happens next.
April 2018: Cardi B and Minaj give separate interviews to Beats 1 addressing their relationship and supposed “feud.” “I just feel like it’s really internet-made-up,” Cardi B said. “I really feel like fans and people, they really want to see that happened, because it’s really entertaining to see people beef. It’s entertaining. Like, I ain’t gonna front, when Nicki and Remy [Ma] was beefing, everyone was tuning and asking, ‘What’s next? What’s next?’…But I don’t really have the time for that. If you not f—ing my man, or if you’re not taking my money from me, if you’re not stopping my money, then I don’t really give a f— about you.”
Minaj was a little more direct with her interview. “The only thing with Cardi that really, really, really hurt my feelings was the first interview she did after ‘MotorSport’ came out,” she said. “The first interview she did after ‘MotorSport’ came out, it just really hurt me. She looked so aggravated and angry and the only thing she said was, ‘Oh, I didn’t hear that. I didn’t hear that verse.’ I was like, what? … That really, really hurt me. I really, fully supported [Cardi] and up until this recent interview I did, I had never seen her show me genuine love in an interview and I can imagine how many girls wish they could’ve been on a song with Nicki Minaj.”
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May 2018: Minaj and Cardi B exchange pleasantries at the Met Gala.
PHOTO: Getty Images
August 2018: Minaj brings up her supposed feud with Cardi B again on her own show Queen Radio. “I didn’t know Cardi and I had an issue,” she said. “To me, she may have taken an issue with things that I’ve said, but I’m not going to bite my tongue…You gotta have thick skin.”
At the end of the month, Cardi B tweets cryptically, “Imagine subbing me but you blocked me from all social media.” And it seems, at least for a short period of time, that Minaj had blocked Cardi B on Twitter.
September 2018: The fight between Minaj and Cardi B goes down at the Harper’s Bazaar Icons Party during New York Fashion Week. Details are fuzzy, despite the fact there’s video footage of the altercation. In an Instagram post, Cardi B explains the straw that broke the camel’s back was hearing Minaj talking smack about her baby with Offset, Kulture. (For what it’s worth, Minaj denies saying anything at all.)
“I’ve let a lot of shit slide! I let you sneak diss me, I let you lie on me, I let you attempt to stop my bags, f–k up the way I eat! You’ve threaten other artists in the industry, told them if they work with me you’ll stop f–king with them!! I let you talk big shit about me,” Cardi B wrote.
“I just want people to know that Onika Tanya Maraj has never, will never… speak ill on anyone’s child. I am not a clown. That’s clown shit,” Minaj said about the altercation several days later on her radio show.
September 2018: In a final move of pettiness, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj choose to publicly endorse different Democratic governor candidates for New York.
