Cardi B says her success paved the way for new female rappers to get their shot.
During a midnight X Spaces on Thursday, the 32-year-old "I Like It" rapper opened the live stream talking about how online bullying affected her mental health and career.
“I've seen a lot of tweets saying that the reason why my album wasn't out, why I stopped doing a lot of things, was because of my marriage. Truthfully and honestly, it wasn't,” Cardi said at the 2:13 mark in the video linked below.
“I don't think you guys understood how much the internet bullying took a toll on me for a very long time,” she continued, “When I won the case [against] Tasha K and my lawyer was saying that I was like suicidal and all that stuff. That wasn't for me to win the case. That was really my life.”
Cardi explained that the constant online scrutiny affected her in many areas of her life. Despite their best efforts, she claimed everyone from therapists, family, friends, and her soon-to-be-ex, Offset, didn’t know “how to console” her.
It seems like Bardi is turning a new leaf as she gears up to release her sophomore album, the follow-up to 2016’s Invasion of Privacy.
“Now, nobody can tell me shit,” Cardi said further into the stream.
“Even just the other day, when people were trying to say, like, ‘Oh, Cardi didn't open no doors and blah blah blah.’ I don't give a fuck about what y’all talking about,” she added. “Labels literally have told me in my face, we started signing female rappers because of the success that you have.”
She continued, “Like, even Kash Doll herself—she'll say it herself. Labels were being real hard around 2017 with female rappers. No matter how good you rap, no matter how good you look, no matter how good anything, because it just wasn’t being done. It took ‘Bodak Yellow’ to show labels that you could really make money with female rappers; that female rappers is the new wave. And all these bitches would never admit it, but it's the fucking truth.”
From there, Cardi predicted her point of view would be discredited but insisted that other female rappers and their record labels have been drawing inspiration from her looks, her mannerisms, and even her marketing.
“I have to realize that's why people wanted me gone so bad or bullied me so bad to the point that I don't believe that in myself, so everybody else could take it from me,” Cardi lamented.
“Well, this year, I feel like I'm over that. I feel like nothing could affect me anymore. And I'm throwing arrows, throwing straight arrows … not letting nobody, no bitch, no n***a, no nothing, fuck with me.”
