Skirt and Briefs by David Koma. Earrings and Bracelets by GLD. Gloves by Givenchy. Shoes by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.
Only Cardi B has the right to doubt Cardi B. Her well-documented rise to superstardom is the product of grit, hustle, and the unapologetic nerve to just be herself. Her debut album, 2018’s Invasion of Privacy, was the result of talent that can’t be denied; an instant silencer of skeptics who believed her historic hit, “Bodak Yellow,” was a fluke. And her chart-topping single last summer, “WAP,” was proof that, at the age of 28, the Bronx native doesn’t just get the culture—she sets the culture. The woɱaп born Belcalis Almáпzar to Trinidadian and Dominican parents, who was a stripper by the age of 18 and a reality star by the ᴛι̇ɱe she was 23, has, in her short career, won a Grammy, broken five Guinness World Records, and sat down with a future president. And yet, as she puts the finishing touches on her highly anticipated sophomore album, the self-described “strip-club Mariah Carey” still needs a little pep talk. So we put her in touch with the real one. —BEN BARNA
———
MARIAH CAREY: Hi, darling.
CARDI B: Oh my gosh. I’m freaking out.
CAREY: Oh, stop. How are you?
CARDI B: I’m okay. Dealing with being locked down.
CAREY: What’s an average day like for Cardi B?
CARDI B: During the pandemic, the average day is me waking up with a lot of ideas in my head, so I’m always calling my team, trying to make whatever I have in my head happen, or I’m wondering about a business venture so I call my lawyer. And someᴛι̇ɱes I go on Twitter, I go to blogs, I see what’s going on in the world. I try to stay off it most of the ᴛι̇ɱe, because someᴛι̇ɱes it’s such a bad vibe. I usually wake up around noon and my daughter wakes up at 3:00 p.m., so I really have no ᴛι̇ɱe to just work, work, work, work.
CAREY: Do you have a glam team with you, or do you do it yourself? What’s been your way of preserving the Cardi B look while making sure everybody around you is safe?
CARDI B: Due to ᴄoⱱι̇ɗ, no lie, my team gets tested at least three or four ᴛι̇ɱes a week, no matter what we do. We always come up with things together. Let’s say I want to wear a shirt: I’ll send the shirt to my stylist and he will put an outfit together. Then I’ll hit up my hairstylist and we’ll decide what hairstyle goes with the fashion, because we don’t always have the same ideas. I was rehearsing for a music video and I had to be around dancers, and we were getting tested practically every single day. It’s so expensive on the budget.
CAREY: What do you think is your most down-to-earth trait?
CARDI B: I can vibe with anybody. I know hood chicks, I know college girls. I can relate to any type of vibe.
CAREY: I know that I didn’t, for my own reasons. When you were little, did you always know, “I stand out from the crowd. Different people notice me, I feel beautiful”? Or did you feel like an outsider?
Skirt and Briefs by David Koma. Earrings and Bracelets by GLD. Gloves by Givenchy. Shoes by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.
Only Cardi B has the right to doubt Cardi B. Her well-documented rise to superstardom is the product of grit, hustle, and the unapologetic nerve to just be herself. Her debut album, 2018’s Invasion of Privacy, was the result of talent that can’t be denied; an instant silencer of skeptics who believed her historic hit, “Bodak Yellow,” was a fluke. And her chart-topping single last summer, “WAP,” was proof that, at the age of 28, the Bronx native doesn’t just get the culture—she sets the culture. The woɱaп born Belcalis Almáпzar to Trinidadian and Dominican parents, who was a stripper by the age of 18 and a reality star by the ᴛι̇ɱe she was 23, has, in her short career, won a Grammy, broken five Guinness World Records, and sat down with a future president. And yet, as she puts the finishing touches on her highly anticipated sophomore album, the self-described “strip-club Mariah Carey” still needs a little pep talk. So we put her in touch with the real one. —BEN BARNA
———
MARIAH CAREY: Hi, darling.
CARDI B: Oh my gosh. I’m freaking out.
CAREY: Oh, stop. How are you?
CARDI B: I’m okay. Dealing with being locked down.
CAREY: What’s an average day like for Cardi B?
CARDI B: During the pandemic, the average day is me waking up with a lot of ideas in my head, so I’m always calling my team, trying to make whatever I have in my head happen, or I’m wondering about a business venture so I call my lawyer. And someᴛι̇ɱes I go on Twitter, I go to blogs, I see what’s going on in the world. I try to stay off it most of the ᴛι̇ɱe, because someᴛι̇ɱes it’s such a bad vibe. I usually wake up around noon and my daughter wakes up at 3:00 p.m., so I really have no ᴛι̇ɱe to just work, work, work, work.
CAREY: Do you have a glam team with you, or do you do it yourself? What’s been your way of preserving the Cardi B look while making sure everybody around you is safe?
CARDI B: Due to ᴄoⱱι̇ɗ, no lie, my team gets tested at least three or four ᴛι̇ɱes a week, no matter what we do. We always come up with things together. Let’s say I want to wear a shirt: I’ll send the shirt to my stylist and he will put an outfit together. Then I’ll hit up my hairstylist and we’ll decide what hairstyle goes with the fashion, because we don’t always have the same ideas. I was rehearsing for a music video and I had to be around dancers, and we were getting tested practically every single day. It’s so expensive on the budget.
CAREY: What do you think is your most down-to-earth trait?
CARDI B: I can vibe with anybody. I know hood chicks, I know college girls. I can relate to any type of vibe.
CAREY: I know that I didn’t, for my own reasons. When you were little, did you always know, “I stand out from the crowd. Different people notice me, I feel beautiful”? Or did you feel like an outsider?
CAREY: I’ve had very similar situations, with the hair. The hair is always a thing. As a matter of fact, we’re about to deal with my hair right now, because it looks quite disgusting. Now, you have access to every great hairdresser in the world, to makeup artists and stylists, the whole glam team and designers. You’re like a real-life princess. Coming from the childhood that you came from, and the experiences that you just talked me through, does it feel like, “Wow, I hope those same people who told me I had a flat ass and nappy hair are looking at this now”? Do you feel vindicated?
CARDI B: I feel so vindicated. Even when I was 18 and became a dancer, I had enough money to afford to buy boobs, so every insecurity that I felt about my breasts was gone. When I was 20, I went to the urban strip club, and in the urban strip clubs, you had to have a big butt. So I felt insecure about that. It took me back to high school. So I got my ass done. And then I felt super confident. When I was younger, I didn’t really know how to take care of my hair. So now I make my own hair mask and take care of my natural hair, and it makes me feel better, like what people were saying about me isn’t true. My hair was not bad because it was nappy. My hair was bad because I didn’t know how to take care of it.
CAREY: Did you have someone in your life, like a parental figure or a sister, to help you figure out your hair? It was a very traumatizing thing for me having a black father and a white mother, because my mother, who raised me, didn’t really know about textured hair. So I think we’re kind of saying the same thing. Who taught you to do hair masks?
Sternum Piercing (worn throughout) Cardi B’s Own. Rings by Lillian Shalom.
CARDI B: When Khia’s “My Neck, My Back” came out, my aunts would be like, “I know y’all not supposed to be listening to that.” So when I used to sing it with my cousins mad loud, I knew I shouldn’t say it because my aunts were like, “You can’t listen to that,” even though I didn’t really know what the fuck it meant at the ᴛι̇ɱe.
CAREY: So now when they hear your music, what do they say? Specifically when it comes to one of your biggest hits, “WAP.” Do you care what they say, or is it just like, “Yo, I’m making money and it is what it is”?
CARDI B: I’m grown now. When I told my mom I was a stripper that really bothered her for a minute. But now when she hears me saying grown shit, I don’t think she gives a fuck anymore. I think she didn’t want me to grow up so fast, because the kids around my neighborhood grew up fast. You need to understand, Mariah, the kids around me were sucking dick at 11 years old.
CAREY: I actually do understand. I’m not saying I did that, but you’d be surprised. I’ve been surrounded by a lot of crazy. We’ll leave it at that.
CARDI B: That’s why my mom was always scared. There was teen pregnancy all around us. She was just being a mom.
CAREY: When you were working at the strip club, were you like, “This is going to be the next step, and then I really want to make records”? Or were you just going with the flow?
CARDI B: When I first entered the strip club, I was really shy. I felt really uncomfortable. I felt very ashamed. There were ᴛι̇ɱes when I was crying, like, “Oh my gosh, if my mom or my dad found out, they’d be so humiliated.” But I needed the fucking money. I was living with my boyfriend at the ᴛι̇ɱe, but he wasn’t doing shit. I used to smoke weed back then, so I felt like weed was necessary. I wanted money for weed and to move out. I just wanted enough money to rent a room. That’s how desperate I was to get the fuck out of the situation I was in
CAREY: [Laughs] Judge not lest thou be judged, to quote the Bible. They shouldn’t be judging you unless they want to judge themselves. And that’s the truth. When everything started happening for you in the music industry, were you surprised?
CARDI B: I had a ɱaпager, and every ᴛι̇ɱe we would be in the car driving to bookings and shit, I always used to remix songs and he’d be like, “Yo, you’re really quick and witty. You be having these bars.” And I was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He was like, “I produced some songs before for Lil’ Kim. Why don’t you try doing music?” And I was like, “Bro, I don’t want to waste my ᴛι̇ɱe. I just want to make fucking money.” And he’s like, “But this might make you money.” He kept telling me, “You need to think bigger.” And that’s exactly what we did. We went to the studio, I did a song called “Stripper Hoe,” and after a while, my goals started changing. Not only did I want to make money, but I wanted to be on the radio. In the strip club, I didn’t want people to just clap for me. I wanted them to sing my shit.
