She’s baaaaack. Cardi B has finally returned with Am I the Drama?, one of the most hotly awaited second albums in history. Incredibly, it’s been seven years since the Bronx queen crashed into the music world with her classic debut Invasion of Privacy, like a one-woman explosion of neon hip-hop flash, making everyone else sound tame by comparison. Yet in all those years, the self-proclaimed “Brimcess” has never been far from the spotlight or the headlines, without ever making a wrong musical move, scoring hits whenever she’s in the mood.
On Am I the Drama?, Cardi makes up for lost time with a massive comeback triumph, standing tall in her bloodier-than-ever shoes. She’s got a long list of scores to settle, enemies to crush, crowns to claim. As always, she brings so much larger-than-life personality to the party that she could coast on charisma if she wanted. But Cardi’s been in the news lately for everything except her music, so it’s a trip to hear her finally get to cut loose and have fun. She’s out to remind everyone she’s looser, wilder, less predictable, just plain funnier than anyone else in the game. As she declares, “All of my cars is chauffeured/I ain’t touched door handles in years!”
She lives up to her RuPaul’s Drag Race-inspired album title, with her Alfred Hitchcock horror-flick artwork, because she’s always the drama. She kicks off the album with “Dead,” opening with a collage of news reports about her on a murderous rampage, aimed at rival rappers. But Cardi proves all their fears are true, roasting her foes left and right, as R&B singer Sumner Walker coos the hook. “I’m collecting body bags like they purses,” Cardi warns. “I don’t even rap no more, I drive hearses/Bitches got some nerve and they be nervous/Don’t tell me, tell customer service.”
She brings that verve all over the album, with guest shots from everyone from sexy-drill king Cash Cobain to South African star Tyla. She duets with Selena Gomez on the high-spirited synth-pop banger “Pick It Up” and with Janet Jackson on the Eighties R&B-style “Principle.” In “What’s Going On,” she waves goodbye to a cheating ex-husband (“You don’t like that I moved on and I hate that for you” — hmmm, wonder who she has in mind) while Lizzo slams it home by singing the hook from 4 Non Blondes, a real Nineties rock flex.
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She bids a bittersweet goodbye to Offset — mostly bitter — on tracks like the touching “Man of Your Word,” where she laments their divorce over a warped steel-drum loop. “As a wife I should have realized when you were hurt/But instead I put my music first,” she says, taking the high road when she admits, “A lot of pressure when a bitch an icon.” But she doesn’t hold back from talking tough, saying, “You was my twin, you was my person/Said you was me but the evil version.” And then there’s the Southern club raunch of “Outside,” with the vicious hook, “Next time you see your mama, tell her how she raised a bitch.”
Cardi has always been a true multi-media pop-culture visionary, going from dancing in strip clubs to Vine stardom to a reality-TV fame on Love & Hip-Hop: New York, even starring with Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers. Some might have assumed at first that this woman was just an influencer dabbling in rap. But make no mistake: music has always been where her heart is, and one of her most underrated strengths has always been her wide-ranging sonic imagination. On Invasion, she slid from 1960s Bronx boogaloo (“I Like It”) to 1990s Dirty South bounce (“Bickenhead”) to 1950s doo-wop (“Thru Your Phone”), dabbling in all these different styles, yet claiming them as her own.
She brings all that ambition to Am I the Drama?. Whatever style she tries on, she comes out of the dressing room, struts out the door, and wears it home. “Bodega Baddie” is high-speed hyped-up space-salsa, with Cardi saying “I’m like Selena, you can tell by my demeanor,” then throwing in the punch line “Gasoliiiiina!” She ends the album with two of her biggest hits, “WAP” (with Megan Thee Stallion) and “Up,” both over four years old — yet neither one sounds dated, because everyone else has spent the past four years imitating them.
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Let’s face it, we love Cardi when she’s happy, but we worship her when she’s mad, and she’s out for blood on this album. Her beef with Bia takes a nasty turn on “Pretty and Petty,” as she taunts, “I’m Cardi B, shorty/Who you wanna be, shorty/You from Boston? Let’s have a little tea party.” She keeps twisting the knife, asking, “Why you always at Diddy’s house?/I heard they turned that little kitty out.”
“Imaginary Players” seems to put Nicki Minaj on blast, “The shit these bitches be braggin’ about is like, shit I was doin’ in, like, 2016-type shit,” she proclaims. “You bitches don’t even know the difference between vintage and archive!” “Better Than You” is a riotous blast of attitude, over a Seventies soul loop that evokes UGK and OutKast’s “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You),” with an assist from Cash Cobain. At the end, the music speeds up into a higher key, as he reminds anyone who needs reminding that Cardi reigns supreme.
It’s been so long since Invasion of Privacy, Cardi’s had three babies since then, and as she just announced this week, she’s expecting another child with her boyfriend, NFL star Stefon Diggs. She pays tribute to him all over the album, in tenderly romantic R&B love jams like “Nice Guy” with Tyla and “On My Back” with Lourdiz. Best of all, there’s “Safe,” a poignant duet with Kehlani. “You know I know you know that I’m that bitch right?” she says. “When I spaz and I crash, you ain’t gon’ dip, right?”
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But whether she’s celebrating domestic bliss or leaving heelprints on her rivals, she’s never dull — Cardi just doesn’t know how. She’s got all the mega-pop vision of her idol Madonna. “If it was up to me, I would do songs like ‘Erotica’ because that’s what I like,” she told Rolling Stone last year. “I like Madonna’s Erotica, ‘Justify My Love.’ If I was on that level that Beyoncé’s at, I would do songs like that.”