Cardi B is making it clear she’s not here for any “grown-ass men” trying to tear her down or dismiss her music.
The Bronx rapper hopped on X Spaces this week to vent after catching heat for her latest Jay-Z sampling track, Imaginary Playerz. While she didn’t drop names, she called out the “grown-ass men” she feels are rooting for her failure.
“For people to dog pile on me over one song,” Cardi said. “And when it comes to dog piling, it’s not even just like, ‘Oh well, I don’t like this song,’ because if you don’t like this song, fine. But to come at the way I speak, to make narratives of how I think I am and who the fuck I think I am, to talk about every single piece of me, to bet on my downfall is crazy.”
Bardi didn’t hold back, continuing her rant: “There’s grown men that are practically betting for me to lose. Grown-ass men that I ain’t never did nothing to, betting on my downfall. And my thing is with these people, it just be like, when my record do good, when ‘Outside’ did good, people couldn’t believe it.”
She went on, “When I do good, the numbers ain’t real. When I do bad, my career is over. It’s almost ridiculous.”
Cardi admitted that the negativity can make releasing music feel draining: “It’s just not even worth your mental health, and I forgot how this feeling felt.”
But she reassured her fans she’s not going anywhere: “If my career ever ends, it’s going to be because I died. It’s never going to be because an opinion or a muthafuckas got to me. You will never make me quit.” She added that her drive isn’t about proving haters wrong, but proving something to herself.
Meanwhile, Joe Budden weighed in on her new single during The Joe Budden Podcast. Cardi’s track samples Jay-Z’s 1997 classic “Imaginary Players,” and Budden wasn’t impressed.
“She shouldn’t do that again,” Budden said. “Don’t take any East Coast top three, four rapper beat, classic song, and redo that. … We gonna shout out the writers. The writers killed. This is not about the writers. … The bars are there. That wasn’t enough.”
He criticized Cardi’s delivery as “choppy” and “not smooth.”
Still, the release gave Jay-Z a boost — Imaginary Players streams jumped 305% between August 15 and 17.
