BY Stephanie Pettway
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Cardi B has won the hearts of people. It may be not so much for her rap skills, but for her personality and honesty. She is not one to hide anything from her fans and literally keeps it real 100 percent of the time. This is why I feel that people can’t stand the fact that she has a huge following with loyal fans.
However, the argument of whether who is better: Nicki Minaj or Cardi B, is an old argument to me. I feel that now we are in the days were being entertaining and likable is more important than the initial talent you have. Which is something I feel that Minaj lacks and has only became apparent with the rise of Cardi.
Before Minaj got involved with rap beefs with other female rappers such as Remy Ma, and Lil Kim, she was always the one to come out on top because the former rappers where pretty much “has-beens.” Minaj was able to comfortable sit on her thrown as being the top, and basically only, female rapper for most of her career until Cardi came up around 2017.
Initially, I felt that Minaj didn’t see her as a threat until the numbers showed otherwise. Cardi was actually making singles that were making it to #1 on the charts, meanwhile, Minaj hadn’t come out with an album in years, and when she did (Queen) it didn’t really do well, and she was not happy.
She went on to attack any and every person and reason why her album did not debut at number one. To me, all I saw was a person that is not ready to get off her throne and pass the crown to someone who is clearly ready to take it. Meanwhile, Cardi is thriving! Her music is doing well, and her relationship appears to be too (though we know this ends up not being the case, but still).
She got married to Migos’ rapper Offset and had their beautiful daughter Kulture. Besides him, Cardi is an all in one package deal. She has minimal talent that she can actually be taken seriously as an artist. That means she can only get better with the right coaching. She is transparent and has been from her days on “Love and Hip Hop,” talking about her past as a stripper and being in a gang, all the way to her pregnancy and Offset cheating on her. On top of it all she is just plain likable and relatable.
This is something that I don’t feel that Minaj has ever been since she started her career. Minaj never gave me the idea that she was a nice person. That didn’t really matter back then, because her talent was all that mattered. But now, when you have people like Cardi, who can do well and may have less talent, she needed to be something more than what she already was, which wasn’t much else than that.
As Cardi continues and other rappers continue to grow, she has shown that she is not only an unlikable person but feels entitled to get what she wants, because of who she is.
Cardi, on the other hand, is just going day by day and seems to be grateful for the opportunity she has. This humbleness she possesses will continue to win over anybody that listens to her and will keep her relevant as time goes on.
