Welcome to the Billions Club, Cardi B.
On Tuesday, the Bronx-bred rapper, 31, announced on social media that she was welcomed into Spotify’s elusive club. The honor celebrates artists whose music has reached over a billion streams on the music platform.
The video shared by Cardi shows her receiving a silver plaque for each song to reach the impressive feat, including her Maroon 5 collab “Girls Like You,” “I Like It” with J Balvin and Bad Bunny, and “Taki Taki” with DJ Snake, Selena Gomez, and Ozuna.
“The more you get, the more you want, so you never feel satisfied,” Cardi told Vogue about the honors. “I sit back and think, ‘Your daughter’s bedroom is bigger than [the] apartment that you grew up in.’ The goal is never gonna be reached because I’m always hungry for more.”
The fourth plaque Cardi received was for her controversial megahit “WAP” with Megan Thee Stallion, released in 2020.
When asked about the uproar the song and its music video generated, Cardi pointed to the overall reach of the release, and the music icons she drew inspiration from.
“Maybe because we’re more mainstream now, the song reached more conservative people over the internet. I guess it made some soccer moms cry,” Cardi said. “But I cannot believe the song became so political. I am very used to hearing explicit lyrics from women. Growing up I listened to Trina, Khia, Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown. Their lyrics were more explicit than mine!”
She continued, “Every female rapper, to me, talks real confident about their pussy. Trina said she got ‘more juice than a grape when you peel the skin.’ Have you ever heard that Jacki-O song? ‘Pussy (Real Good)?’ That song is wilder than ‘WAP’!”
Elsewhere in the interview, Cardi discussed performing the song for the first time during the Grammys and finding out she was pregnant around that time.
“When I was rehearsing the week before, I got really sick. I couldn’t even rap good on the mic because I was so tired. I thought, What’s wrong with me? But I knew what was wrong with me: I woke up and found out I was pregnant! Next thing you know, the Grammys was over, I got an ultrasound…but history was made,” Cardi recalled.
“It’s insane that this song made a billion streams in such a short time. I remember when it was just an idea—I had that song in me for nine months. Me and Megan worked really hard on the production, on the mixing, on the video. We gave it our all, every step of the way…and we knew it was gonna be a hit. Easy.”
Despite promising to release her oft-delayed sophomore album this year, Cardi B hasn’t dropped an album since her 2018 debut, Invasion of Privacy, and apparently a new album might never arrive.
Bardi got into a heated exchange with a few of her fans online this week after one of them poked fun at her past promises to deliver the highly-anticipated LP.
“I hate that I fall back and start interacting again and it bites me in the ass,” wrote Cardi in a now-deleted tweet. “Anyway NO album this year I don't care I'm relaxing this year .. Dropping these features I already committed to and traveling and enjoying my summer.”
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