Fresh off the success of her latest album, Am I the Drama?, Cardi B is in the middle of a heated social media drama with Nicki Minaj. The two have long been at odds, going back to the early days of Cardi B’s career, though what appears to have set off this current flare-up were early reports that Cardi’s latest album, which debuted at the top of the charts this week, was the best-performing album from a female rap act in history. In a string of since-deleted tweets on Monday, Minaj took issue with the claims, alleging that Cardi’s album sales were inflated by bundles and discounts. From there, chaos quickly ensued.
Cardi fired back at Minaj, noting that an artist of her pedigree should be comparing themselves to the Taylor Swifts of the world as opposed to her. “You been in the game like 16 years.. you need to compare yourself to YOUR peers that started around YOUR time,” she wrote on social platform X, formerly Twitter. “Rihanna, Taylor swift, Drake…those are the numbers you need to be competing wit and you can’t cuz you doing lower than all of them… I was in high school when you came out wtf is you comparing yourself to me for???”
In response, Minaj took to X for the first of many since-deleted tirades attacking Cardi’s promotional methods, claiming her $4.99 album promotion was “cheapening” her music. She also shared AI-generated images likening Cardi to the children’s TV show character Barney. Even more troubling, the attacks escalated into more personal realms, with Minaj making disparaging comments about Cardi B’s pregnancy, and mentioning her children explicitly.
Cardi responded in kind, speculating whether or not Minaj was abusing substances, and insinuating that Minaj’s substance use has affected her children’s health. Cardi also accused Minaj’s brother of having a sexual assault case. She also insinuated that Minaj was infertile as a result of drug use.
The exchange only escalated from there, with Minaj going on to continue to mention Cardi’s children and also accusing various figures in the music industry — notably her favorite target Roc Nation — of backdoor dealings to undermine her career. Cardi at one point outright challenged Minaj to share her location, appearing to escalate the war of words into something more serious. Minaj threatened to sue over Cardi’s comments about infertility.
Things continued to escalate late into this afternoon, with Minaj at one point imploring her audience to not stream Am I the Drama? and Cardi writing a lengthy post mentioning Minaj’s past experiences with sexual assault. “I’m not throwing away my career and my endorsements going back and forth with wit words wit a possessed drug addict,” Cardi wrote. “ILL SEE YOU WHEN I SEE YOU.”
Both parties appear to still be exchanging tweets as of this writing.
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
From Rolling Stone US
