Asking Cardi B to mind her tongue is like asking an oceanic creature to abandon its undersea home. It’s not fucking happening. The Bronx MC lives and breathes controversy, even when she’s not intentionally courting it. Since her 2017 breakthrough single, “Bodak Yellow,” Cardi B has steadily revealed herself to be the high-profile celebrity of our time, a larger-than-life personality who is just as quick to dress down the average Barb as she is to eviscerate her own peers.
Between a messy divorce, babies (babies, and more babies), rap beefs, internet vitriol, and court cases, Cardi B has remained in the public eye. This is all despite the fact that she hadn’t released an album since 2018’s Grammy-winning Invasion of Privacy. Her new album, Am I the Drama?, confirms that yes, Cardi B is the reason for all of the chaotic situations she constantly finds herself in — but is she at fault, or is she just shining too bright? Cardi’s latest project is an offering of proof that she’s a blameless victim of hating-ass bitches and ain’t-shit n****s. It’s up to us to believe her.
In a recent Spotify conversation with Destiny’s Child royalty Kelly Rowland, Cardi shed light on the inspiration behind Am I the Drama? “Sometimes, fans or people will be like, ‘Oh, don’t give them energy,’” Cardi said. “‘They don’t deserve your energy,’ or like, ‘They don’t deserve your clout or your attention.’ And it’s like, nah, you know what? Fuck it. I’mma give it to you. It’s like, fuck it, I’mma give it to you. Because sometimes people be like, ‘Just ignore, ignore, ignore. Take the high road.’ And it’s like, ‘Fuck the high road.’” If you’ve been paying even a smidgen of attention, you know that Cardi B’s aversion to going high when others go low is unsurprising. This album is her opportunity to get her lick back on everyone who has been praying on her downfall, be it for years or minutes.
The opening track, “Dead,” features R&B diva Summer Walker singing more passionately than we’ve heard her in a while, as Cardi raps about her foremost goal of killing the competition: “They say, ‘Cardi, you tweaking,’ nah, I don’t be tweaking enough/ Bitches be doing shit and I be letting it slide and I don’t be bringing it up/ Bitches be out here telling lies about me and y’all just be eating it up/ But when I drag her to hell, ‘Cardi, you evil as fuck!’” On the BossMan Dlow-inspired “Magnet,” Cardi menacingly sharpens a lyrical machete in a pointed attack against JT of the former Miami rap group City Girls. For nearly a minute straight, Cardi shatters the rapper’s image, without a single care or fuck to give.
“Pretty & Petty” is unexpected sonically, as it bangs like a song that West Coast newcomer AZ Chike would place on his own debut album. But thematically, it’s right on cue, as Cardi uses the entire song to re-escalate her beef with Boston rapper BIA, an artist she’s been targeting since her feature on last year’s “Wanna Be” remix with GloRilla and Megan Thee Stallion. “Name five BIA songs, gun pointing to your head/ Bow, I’m dead,” she raps at the top of the track, before launching into an outright assault based on accomplishments. “You wanna beef with me, are you sure?/ Do she even got a BET Award?” (While a BET Award is a high honor in the Black community, it’s sometimes seen as low on the totem pole of awards across the industry.)