In September, Cardi B.’s hit, Bodak Yellow, rose to the top of the charts, unseating Taylor Swift from her number one slot. This made Cardi the first female rapper in two decades to have a No. 1 song since Lauryn Hill did Doo Wop (That Thing) in 1998, reports Vulture. Cardi, the stripper turned social-media sensation, turned reality-TV star, turned rapper, is famous for her confidence, but told Vulture said that sometimes she gets discouraged by everyone reassuring her that it is going to be okay, or when people predict where she’ll be in a year.
Bodak Yellow is dismissive and confident; it is a song about knowing your worth and getting what you deserve. Cardi B. herself said that it sometimes can pick her up.
“It makes you feel like a bad bitch. It gives you this self-esteem. Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m the prettiest, sometimes I don’t feel like I’m on top, and when I hear “Bodak Yellow” again, I’m like, ‘Yeah! I’m that bitch!’” she said to Vulture.
After her song hit No. 1, Cardi won five of the nine BET awards she was nominated for, and she bought herself a $240,000 burnt-orange Bentley SUV, even though she doesn’t drive. She’s getting married, and said that “the world is not ready for it. Everybody got to be wearing red,” according to Vulture.
Cardi’s birth name is Belcalis Almanzar, and she was born in 1992 in the Bronx. Vulture writes that she has taken the concept of “ratchet” and played it to her advantage, and is incredibly self-aware. But Vulture says that real charm and genius of the rapper is that she doesn’t let anything get in the way of what and who she actually is: “funny, a little neurotic, unabashed in her ambition and desire for money, and yet sincere in her attachment to how and where she grew up.”
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