Cardi B, the exceptional ex-stripper who fashioned herself into a superstar, has created a brand that involves people accepting her jagged edges. As a rapper, she transparently shoots for not just a big audience impression, but whatever visibility, on whatever platform, will make her greater. We’ve embraced that her goal post is profit, because money rules the world and because strippers make the best accountants. “I have a passion for music, I love music. But I also have a passion for money and paying my bills,” she told The Fader in 2017. It’s forgivable when she falters. And when she raps, with that barbed yet sometimes broken flow, it’s fine because the music is moving.
With her first, highly self-aware album, Invasion of Privacy, she’s made songs that will sensibly bang on her former turf (the strip club), on the radio, and in places where people dance. But predominantly, it’s music that allows women to tap into their wildest, most rancorous frequencies and crudest emotions. Through a number of detailed instructions of the sort that made her famous—i.e. materialism as means of agency and ascension—Cardi encourages the liberation of a certain swaggering persona. That powerful, sometimes problematic part of yourself that rants, brags, instigates, and does celebratory ass moves. Think of Insecure’s mirror moments, where Issa Rae tunes into her ratchet alter ego, becoming cocky and free. Cardi’s album is peak Ratchetpiece Theater, a self-affirmation soundtrack to letting loose for once (or twice).
In how many permutations can one pop a pussy?
Take one of Invasion’s anthems, “Bickenhead,” where she suggests a plethora of ways to drop it low like the rent is due, through a whirlwind of pussy-popping moves: “Pop that pussy like you ain’t popped that pussy in awhile/Pop that pussy like poppin’ pussy is going out of style/Pop that pussy while you work/Pop that pussy up in church/Pop that pussy on a pole/Pop that pussy on the stove.” If all else fails, location wise: “Spread them ass cheeks open, let that pussy crack a smile.” You can do that anywhere. It’s a good workout perhaps, and also a great life question: In how many permutations can one pop a pussy?
The song is crafty in its mere existence, a sample of the 2001 classic “Chickenhead,” which came out during a glorious era of ratchet rap—that uninhibited style of hip-hop that’s solely concerned with the freedom of partying and bullshit. On the original record, which features back-and-forth trash-talking, Project Pat addresses a “bald-headed scallywag,” and La Chat argues back: “You riding clean/But ya gas tank is on E.” Cardi’s version bears the same deep rattle and audacity, except there’s a transaction in play: “Give him some vag, I’m gettin’ a bag.” In the long line of women rappers who’ve bartered sexuality to contentious results, there’s a sense that, a la Trina, Cardi’s enterprising approach feels true to character (she had been doing it on her own) rather than an unfortunate kowtowing to rap expectations.