I will only accept four ladies as Women of the Year: Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Kamala Harris and Dr. Jill Biden. When is THAT photoshoot?? Instead of that powerful foursome, Billboard decided to just give Cardi B their Woman of the Year honor. She deserves it! “WAP” was one of the few good things about 2020, and Cardi continues to be interesting, engaging, newsworthy, infuriating and funny. You can read Cardi’s Billboard interview here. Some highlights:
Her vibe for 2020: “I want to show people that you can do positive things, but you can also be yourself. I like justice. I like to work and be creative. But I also like popping my p–sy.”
Watching the returns on Election Day: “I was having fun with my kid, but then I kept looking on Instagram and was getting jittery. [Before the election], I just felt like Biden had this in the bag. Then Election Day came, and I’m seeing so many states are just red, period. It just surprises you when you don’t hear people around you saying, “Oh, I don’t support Trump.” There’s other people that don’t really think like us. Millions of people who are not on the same page as you and don’t understand what he did wrong and why we’re so anxious. I’m like, “Oh, sh-t. I’m getting nervous now.”
Seeing the world celebrate Biden’s win: “You know, we always talking sh-t about this country, even though we’re from this country. At the end of the day, we need to understand we are a big example to other countries. I’m seeing France celebrate Biden’s win. I seen Haiti celebrate the win of Biden. When my parents came to this country, they just thought this was the land of dreams and sh-t. Everybody around the world thinks the same way, even though we don’t see it because we live here. It’s important to set a good example, show unity and have somebody that represents us the right way.
People singing “WAP” outside the White House when Biden won: “I just feel like it was such a big victory for me and for Megan. I’m so used to listening to raunchy female rap music since I was a little girl — Trina, Khia, Lil’ Kim, Jacki-O, Foxy [Brown]. “WAP,” to me, was just a regular raunchy female rap song, but it caused so much controversy. So many Republicans — not just any Republicans that got an Instagram following, but a lot of Republicans that got blue checks [on Twitter] and millions of followers, [like Ben] Shapiro, Candace Owens, Tomi Lahren — were talking so much crap about “WAP.” So it was just a victory for me seeing people celebrating Biden’s win with my and Megan’s song. Power of the p–sy, ya heard?!
Whether all cops are bastards: “A lot of these Trump supporters don’t understand why people say, “Black lives matter.” People didn’t go looting because Trump was president — they went looting because there’s a lot of Black men getting killed unjustly. A lot of Republicans think that we hate the police. Personally, there was a point when I did hate the cops because I had really bad experiences growing up with the cops, but I also met cops that are really good people and have really good hearts. I just feel like we need to hire more people like that. That’s why people love firefighters — they just believe firefighters got a good heart. They don’t care if you’re Black or white, they ain’t just gonna let you die in a fire.
Bringing her daughter Kulture to the Show Me the Signs campaign: “I just thought she was looking really cute — and I want her to grow up knowing how the world really is. My daughter came out of my p–sy rich. She lives a different lifestyle than I lived. This girl gets in a pool every single day; I can’t swim because I barely went to the pool. There was only one community pool where I’m from. I want her to know that just because you have money, that doesn’t mean you’re super-privileged. Even me with her dad [rapper Offset], we have had really bad experiences with police, and we’re rich and famous. I want her to know that you’re not going to be an exception. I want her to have compassion. I don’t want her to ever have the mentality of, “This doesn’t apply to me.”
Libra energy: “I don’t know if I’m an activist. I’m a Libra — we are the justice sign. I like fairness, and I have compassion toward everybody. This is the type of person that I’ve always been. When I was a stripper, I posted the same shit that I post now. I was doing marches in Harlem. But I don’t want people to think, “Oh, she’s an activist.” There’s people out here that really go off and beyond, like a Tamika [Mallory] or Shaun King, who go out of their way to really help. I feel like those are activists. I don’t want to take away from what they are. I just want to be a person with a platform that believes in good.
She obviously talks about so much more, like how she doesn’t like the nastiness and bad energy of social media these days, how much she loves Megan Thee Stallion, what went into the making of “WAP” and more. I can’t believe she name-checked Shaun King, who is a giant fraud! Lord, somebody tell her. Anyway, I’ll always love the way Cardi speaks about politics and the importance of political engagement. I honestly believe she helped a lot of young people become first-time voters this year, and I enjoy what she says about staying active and staying vigilant politically.
Covers & IG courtesy of Billboard.
I genuinely find Cardi endlessly fascinating. She definitely makes mistakes (and I think Offset ain’t shit) but overall I think she’s a great person and I LOVE watching her grow and develop as a person.
rofl at that Offset sidebar 🤣
Agreed completely. I think a lot of people dismiss her as just being a rapper, but I think she’s really thoughtful and has a lot of good opinions on things. I don’t agree with everything she says/does (like Offset as you mentioned, and her hosting parties during COVID), but for whatever reason I really do believe she has a good heart, and I can’t say that about a lot of celebrities.
Agreed. She makes mistakes but I cringe when people dismiss her as being an “idiot.” She’s obviously intelligent and talented, and I love how politically involved and vocal she has been. I love how Kaiser covers Cardi.
I’ve noticed some commenters jump all over someone like Cardi for ignoring COVID guidelines (and that is indeed a dumb and dangerous move). But a lot of celebrities, and hell regular people we all know, are doing what they want. Let’s not pick and choose who to sh*t on.
I like what she said about being able to be more than one thing too. So often people say things like, “I can’t listen to what this one or that one has to say about misogynistic abuse, racism, etc. or take her seriously because of how much of her body she has shown or how sexual she has been,” as if that’s not something to work on. But learning to share these movements with people who aren’t the same as us when it comes to respectability politics is important. It’s a big mistake to expect equality from teaching men and boys of any race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation that you only have to try to be respectful to one type of woman.
Curious about Kaiser’s hate for Shawn King there at the end of the piece- maybe I missed something in the news?
He’s a massive con artist and fraud
https://www.thedailybeast.com/shaun-king-keeps-raising-money-and-questions-about-where-it-goes-3
I didn’t know that about Shaun. I had followed him a lot on Facebook when I was still active on the platform, and he really did fight for justice, so I will always appreciate him for that.
Whatever these money issues are, he needs to get that together because they are clearly tarnishing his image.
Whether or not he’s a total fraud is up for debate to me, but I do legitimately get the sense from a lot of these articles that he’s nowhere near as politically and economically savvy as he pretends to be, and that is a problem if he keeps fundraising people’s money and repeatedly mismanaging it. He’s very good at knowing how to wield social media effectively to garner media attention, which is definitely a skill, but so is running an organization, and they do not necessarily overlap. In a lot of ways, I wonder if it’s intentional maliciousness or just a lot of ego at play hiding financial incompetence.
Either way, people would be wise to redirect their money into organizations that have a proven track record. I think there’s definitely a subset of the Internet that means well but isn’t as wary as they should be of fundraising types. An important part of giving money to organizations is researching them.
As a Louisville resident, I dislike him because he posted incorrect information about windows being boarded at the Hall of Justice during the height of the Breonna Taylor protests.
He posted that a “source” had told him no charges were being announced against the officers. In REALITY, they were being boarded because a few had been damaged the night before and needed repairs, and employees had requested them being boarded in the meantime. It caused huge tension and nearly resulted in unrest that day; local activists had to repeatedly calm everyone down and say none of their sources corroborated the story. It got Shaun King a lot of likes and retweets though, which is what he actually cares about.
Shaun King has been repeatedly called out for a number of things including blackfishing. He is much the same as the white women who have been called out in recent years for inserting themselves in Black spaces and speaking over Black voices, using the veneer of their own (false) Blackness to justify it.
Shaun King sent out a marketing letter tied to Chadwick Boseman’s death.
Shaun King is terrible. Offset ain’t $#!+ but Shaun King is a whole other kind of dirtbag.
I’m skeptical of the blackfishing allegations since that claim originally was spread by the white-supremacist Right, BUT King makes it a practice of speaking over Black women — and hemorrhaging their money — and, scammer or not, is not a good leader. I have him muted.
I think her point about cops is especially notable because…even as a middle class white woman, my experiences with police are not excessively positive, and my mother grew up very poor and is downright wary and distrustful of them. But sure, I’ve known one or two that are decent, and if anything , that’s what you should want to reform the system. It’s insulting to police who see their job as a service to the community to be dragged down by those who think it’s a power trip. Bad apples spoil the whole barrel.
Cardi B’s turned out to be a surprising celebrity, hasn’t she? She certainly stumbles occasionally, but there’s a real mind to her experiences there as somebody who legitimately rose up from urban poverty to where she is today. She brings some thoughtful points to the table as somebody who is most certainly not unproblematic but has a very blunt and realistic view of where her life’s journey took her.
Excellent take on Cardi! I don’t mind supporting people who are at times problematic when they seem as honest and authentic as she is.
I always happen to find it very interesting when some Americas think that everyone idolizes or thinks that the US is THE example for other countries. My friends and I (living in Austria btw) have had this conversations a couple of times and because of all the movies and TV-shows we watched I used to think that as well when I was much younger and not really that interested in the News. However, now when we do think about the US, we manly think of Donald Trump and his less than smart followers, or the problems with the healthcare system and the welfare system in general. I’m not saying that Austria or other European countries are doing everything better, we definitely do not, but yeah I just find it interesting that some think that the US is the one country everyone looks up to. Did lots of people outside of the US celebrate the win of Biden yes, but I think that was mainly because the US has a lot of power and influence in the World.
The citizens of those countries? Not so much. But in terms of the political levels? Yes, I do think a lot of countries wait to see “what America does.” I think they pretend otherwise, but I find it very telling how much the world was shaken up by America putting Trump in office. Internal propaganda aside, a lot of that is just a matter of the current power structure. America funds a hefty percentage of NATO and other global armed forces. We pay the highest amount into the WHO and UN (Trump yelled about it a lot, but he doesn’t control budget, Congress does). A lot of world leaders will hedge around their frustrations with America but they don’t actually *do* anything about it nor do their citizens push them to. The UN meetings still allowed Trump to show up and cause trouble. Nobody sanctioned us or intervened with the trouble Trump (or previous presidents) caused in the Middle East or with the climate pact. The only country to really push back when we gave them shit was China, and notice that even they played the game carefully because, despite insinuations otherwise, China and America very much need each other as global markets to maintain their status as economic powerhouses.
I think it needs to change, and the EU in particular really needs to start making moves to push itself into a position of preeminence because America is going to go through some major civil upheaval in this next decade, and nobody here knows how it’s going to shake out. If America winds up collapsing as a union, somebody needs to be there to fill the power vacuum, and I’d rather it be the EU than China or Russia.
Personally, as an American I greatly look up to many European countries for how they handle healthcare, the prison system, maternity and paternity leave, work/life balance, etc. I think a lot of the “socialist” ideals many liberals have are just commonplace in Europe.
What happened to her face?? Especially in the profile shot. Also I’m no prude but the word p***y has that same effect and on me that “moist” does.
Her face is fine. Faces change as we grow older, gain and lose weight, use certain medications, have children, cry, travel, etc. Cardi also has medical aesthetic intervention fun money, so even if that’s the case, it’s her face and it’s still fine.
I’m not a stan, but comments like this are getting tiresome. I think of the hurt that Chadwick Boseman must have felt at comments about his appearance in the last months of his life — some of it veiled as concern and some outright mocking. It seems trivial, but people didn’t know that he had health issues because he didn’t *want* them to know. The speculation was just mean. Why add *one more thing* to someone’s already full plate? Being a human is hard, being a human woman is harder, and literally no one should look at an in-tact face and say “what’s going on there?” It’s truly none of your business if it’s not your face.
I’m entitled to my opinion just as you are entitled to yours. Cardi has talked about her plastic surgery in the past publicly, which I believe invites discussion. I would not speculate had she not introduced the topic herself in a public forum. People don’t change their looks and expect no one to notice.
I think if someone drastically alters their appearance that it’s not unusual to be surprised. I disagree that “literally no one” should question things about altering physical appearance. Plastic surgery can be extremely detrimental to the psyche of young and developing women who expect themselves to look a certain way.
Also I’m not saying this to be rude, but intact is one word.
Did you see the JLo thread then?
I agree, I didn’t recognize her. Looks like she changed her nose. I don’t give a shit one way or the other, but yeah.
I wonder if Billboard will post anything about her use of the “R” word, and her doubling down after she was rightly called out on it. How any person can think that word is okay to say, let alone type out on a tweet is beyond me. But hey, she makes catchy music, so good job.
I like that what she says about cops and I agree with her. Not all cops are bad, many have a good heart and want to help people; I know several. They are the ones that need to lead the reform for the bad ones who abuse their power.
Would love to see a female empowerment cover with her, Jill Bidden, and Kamala Harris. I don’t know what Megan Thee Stallion has done of note besides WAP though…
Sometimes a person’s view of another country is determined by how they can or can’t get away with treating specific groups of people, or whether or not their ‘authority’ will be readily submitted to. People have seen the western conservative side of that here. But it happens the other way too. That’s all I’ll say on that for now.
She looks cute here.
I’d had way more respect for her if she didn’t claim that drugging and robbing men on a pretense of sex was her only way of survival. Bitch, I came to New York at the age of 19 not speaking the language, not knowing a single person, not having a friend of a friend or relative in the whole country, and I put myself through college without drugging, robbing, or scamming men out of their money.
I also don’t like that she perpetuates the female sex and body as a commodity exchanged for money and gifts. I mean it can be a viable option, but I don’t get why she is the face of feminism in that – women have been doing for centuries, to was THE only way. I do appreciate that she spokes about female enjoyment from sex – that we can use more of.
And I do acknowledge that she is an outstanding artist.