The Politics of Being Cardi B

It feels like a lifetime ago, given the breakneck pace of the news and the steady erosion of our political system, but it has only been a year since rap lightning rod Cardi B sat down with Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders in a Detroit nail salon in the summer of 2019. The polymathic force—former stripper/onetime reality star/raptress/ wife/mother/hellion—converted the salon into a backdrop for an earnest conversation around the most urgent issues facing Americans today: job creation, police brutality, a livable minimum wage, and workers’ rights. The scene was full of obvious asymmetry—Cardi’s glamour-puss persona played irreverently off Sanders’s mensch—but in many ways, it was just two New Yorkers talking about the issues of the day, with all the camaraderie of the politicking found at any Dominican bodega that dots Cardi’s native South Bronx neighborhood.

This wasn’t the first time that Cardi, born Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, had spoken out about politics; in fact, the voluble rapper, who experienced meteoric fame after the release of 2017’s chart-topping “Bodak Yellow,” can’t keep herself from doing so. Whether imploring fellow celebrities and influencers in unprompted Instagram videos to use their platforms to speak out against President Donald Trump’s draconian rule, or expressing her infatuation with the New Deal in a 2018 GQ interview, Cardi never minces words. She is a lifelong history buff—a gangsta with a thing for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Still, her decision to sit down with the senator immediately courted controversy, turning the comments section of her Instagram into a battleground of dissent. Nearly every time she speaks on such topics, a rush of online naysayers balk at the self-described “regular degular schmegular girl from the Bronx” making a foray into politics: “You need to stick to rapping, sis, you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about,” one commenter wrote. Fox News panned Cardi’s and Sanders’s meeting of the minds, slut-shaming her for her former work as a stripper while ignoring the fact that the current resident of the White House was once embroiled in an alleged affair with a porn star. But as Cardi declared in the 2019 song “Clout,” “Public opinions from private accounts / You not a check, then you gotta bounce,” referring to the verified check marks on social media platforms. Which is to say, Cardi will not be quieted by bots, avatars, critics, or trolls.

Nearly a year later, in early July, I’m on the phone with the rapper, who is in L.A. prepping the first video of her long-awaited sophomore album. The topics covered in her prescient heart-to-heart with Sanders are now playing out in real time. COVID-19 has sent the U.S. economy into a recession and triggered mass unemployment (“A lot of my family caught COVID. A lot of people around me lost their jobs,” Cardi says). The Republican-controlled Senate’s response has left millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet with a mere onetime $1,200 stimulus check. All while unarmed Black men and women are being killed by the police in the streets and in their homes with impunity. Oh, and the presidential election has been whittled down to just two candidates, with “Uncle Bernie,” Cardi’s nickname for Sanders, having conceded to former vice president Joe Biden in April.

Of course, the rapper never could have foreseen a global pandemic, nor its fallout, but she recognized early on the value in remaining politically engaged and the significance of the upcoming presidential election. While she may be disappointed that Sanders has dropped out of the race, she assures me she is committed to doing anything to get Joe Biden elected. She wants Trump out of office, describing him as an ineffectual leader. “Those people that he caters [to], he’s not going to do anything for them. It’s not like Republicans are getting better housing. It’s not like Republicans are getting better benefits. They’re not. He’s not doing anything for anybody. He’s just saying things that appease the same people.” Cardi has a different vision. “I want a president who makes me feel secure. I want a president who understands the pain of the people. I want a president who is going to give us answers,” she says, wistfully. “That’s why I like [New York governor Andrew] Cuomo. I like him because he makes me feel like he’s listening to me.” She’s been rallying her loyal Bardi Gang fan base to become more active in their electoral system, voting in elections at all levels: “You can vote for DAs. You can vote for mayors. You can vote for your district. Not everything is the president. You know what I’m saying?”

Cardi’s message is piercing, and unlike many of her celebrity peers, she seems to be able to get through to her millions-strong online community, using diaristic Instagram Lives as a brand of rogue daily press briefings. On a recent standout episode, she launched into a seething, unedited soliloquy on how carelessly she saw the public responding to COVID, all while balancing a towel on her head, a robe around her waist, and clicking and clacking her trademark talons for added effect. “Y’all not taking it motherfuckin’ serious!” Pounding her fist against a takeout container, she was both the picture of a wisecracking, concerned mother and a New Age political savant. In recent weeks, Cardi has put out forceful statements on current events that bear no resemblance to canned press releases or performative activism. After participating in a call that gun control advocate Tamika Mallory arranged with Breonna Taylor’s mom, Tamika Palmer, and other celebrities, Cardi became wholly invested in the wrongful death of the 26-year-old Black EMT, who was fatally shot eight times in her home by plainclothes police officers in Louisville, Kentucky. The officers justified entering with a so-called no-knock warrant. “That is so insane to me. [I saw] Breonna Taylor’s name everywhere, but I didn’t really know her story,” Cardi says. “What they did to her is really fucked up. Really fucked up.” She is enraged about the lack of justice: “What’s the excuse? Why is the cop not in jail? Wasn’t what he did a crime? It’s a crime! And no apology. No apology. No video of the cop coming out crying, ‘I fucked up. I don’t this. I don’t that.’ Nothing. It’s nothing. I don’t even know how her mom still holds her head up. Unbelievable.”

Cardi became incensed upon hearing Palmer, who filed a lawsuit against the officers involved in May, recount the painful and confusing treatment she received from the police department in the hours after her daughter’s murder. Officers sent Palmer to the hospital despite knowing Breonna’s body remained in her home; she told Cardi and the other celebs on the call that the police gave her the runaround for hours when she asked questions about Breonna’s fate. “Imagine how frustrated her mom was, crying, probably hysterical. The cops call her saying her daughter is in the hospital, and her daughter is not even there. Then the person who’s supposed to protect her is asking her mom, ‘Do you know anybody who [would] want to hurt Breonna Taylor?’ when you guys know who killed her!”

The harrowing account reminded Cardi of when her own cousin was murdered: “I remember everybody waking up at 3 a.m. and driving all the way to New Jersey, to the hospital. And through all that driving, you’re crying and scared and everything.” The experience inspired her to join a growing cadre of notable women (Beyoncé, Oprah, Senator Kamala Harris) who have pleaded for charges to be brought against the offending officers involved in Taylor’s murder: Jon Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove. “Don’t let Kentucky Police Department get away with this shit!!!!!” Cardi wrote in a paragraph-long Instagram caption detailing Taylor’s case that she posted in early June. Cardi would go on to change her IG avatar to simply “Breonna Taylor” to pay homage and bring continued awareness to the issue.

She says she wishes she saw more male rappers speaking out about Taylor’s killing. “A woman like Breonna Taylor, she was young. She looked like she was listening to your music. She looked like she was your fan. You should stick up for her,” she says. While some would hesitate to call Cardi a “conscious rapper,” her words speak to a larger conversation currently being waged within the rap community around the political responsibility of top-tier male hip-hop artists. Chance the Rapper and J.Cole, two rappers who are often lauded for their introspective body of work, noticeably waded into the debate around the state of America’s political unrest this past summer, but both clumsily responded and were chastised publicly for their polarizing stances. Cardi’s advocacy for progressive social policies like Social Security and other public safety nets often puts her in a league of her own.

If I don’t fucking like somebody, I am going to let them know I don’t fucking like them, or I don’t fuck with them, or I’m not feeling their energy.

Of course, Cardi’s politics are not above reproach. The rapper has been “canceled” many times (there were at least four attempts in 2019 alone) for incendiary comments that were viewed as glorifying crime, and guilty of colorism and racism. The list of offenses is lengthy, and includes years-old footage of Cardi admitting to drugging and robbing men during her stripper days, as well as resurfaced tweets of Cardi using the word cockroach to allegedly describe dark-skinned Black women. More recently, Cardi was accused of keeping a ghost Instagram account in which she allegedly commented on other celebrities, including Megan Thee Stallion, Ariana Grande, and eternal foe Nicki Minaj. “I saw I was trending on Twitter, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ ” Cardi says of seeing the hashtag #CardiBIsOver. “I’m like, ‘Jesus Christ, what did I do now? Like what?’ ” In response, she posted a video on Instagram, seemingly unfazed, showing off what she was wearing to her own “cancel party” (a white slip dress and matching Christian Louboutin heels) before jumping into a pool, fully clothed. “If I haven’t been posting on Instagram and eating food and that still bothers y’all, that just means I’m really that important in your heart and my press is really part of your soul. And guess what? I don’t give a damn. Bye!” she ranted in the footage.