Interestingly, Cardi said she hasn’t been paid in two years because her debut album only came out in April 2018.
Cardi B is one of the biggest female rappers in the music industry, having gained an enormous amount of success with countless hit songs, such as Bodak Yellow, Please Me, I Like It, and Clout featuring her husband Offset.
The Bronx native recently sat down for a deposition concerning her lawsuit filed by Kevin Brophy – the man who claims to be on the cover of her 2016 mixtape Gangsta B***h Music Vol.1 – who says he was never paid for his contribution in the photoshoot and now hopes to walk away with $5 million.
But during her deposition, the mother-of-one says she hasn’t actually made any money from her music career – and that’s even though she’s sold millions of records, won the prestigious Grammy award in 2019 for Best Album, and has even earned the Songwriter Of The Year accolade by ASCAP two years in a row.
So what’s the situation with her music career earnings how has her net worth still managed to spike to a whopping $24 million? Here’s all you need to know.
She’s one of the best-selling female rappers but hasn’t made any money from her music sales – and that’s despite her debut album Invasion of Privacy selling 3.1 million copies as of October 2019, which is strange, to say the least.
When asked by Brophy’s lawyers about her financial situation, Cardi B responded by saying: “I mean, it’s hard for me to do because I’m in litigation, so I haven’t even gotten paid for, like, none of my music yet, so…”
She was then asked to elaborate on how she has not been paid from her successful career, to which she explained: “I’m in litigation. So that means I would have to audit, like, audit a label and stuff like that, and I am in litigation, so you just can’t do it…
“I haven’t gotten paid for my music in two — in years, in years.”
Interestingly, Cardi said she hasn’t been paid in two years because her debut album only came out in April 2018, which most likely means that any money she was paid by her record label were advanced payments that probably went back to cover the costs for the production of the project.
Licensing fees, and using samples such as Pete Rodriguez’s I Like It Like That for her single I Like It, which not only went No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 – the rapper’s second time achieving this milestone – but also went on to shift over 9 million copies worldwide.
There’s no denying that the Press chart-topper is owed a lot of money, but given that nobody knows what kind of a contract she signed when she got with Atlantic Records, perhaps she isn’t owed any money at all?
It’s rather common for up-and-coming artists to sign deals that are not exactly lucrative – usually, the label would want to see how successful the first album becomes before renegotiating a deal for a sophomore record.
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This is an important point for the fact that, in May 2020, reports claimed that Cardi B was looking to renegotiate her contractual obligations with her record label for reasons concerning the lack of income from her music career success.
According to HITS Daily Double, the Grammy winner was amid a “protracted renegotiation” with Atlantic, who were alleged to have postponed the release of her next album.
The credible publication wrote: “Still, she’s a monster brand; insiders say a protracted renegotiation of her record deal has held up the release of her next full-length. What’s taking so long to get that deal done? Is something more than money involved?”
On August 7, however, Cardi B teased fans with a new project being in the works when she released her highly-anticipated song, Wap, with fellow female rapper Megan Thee Stallion – the video amassed over 30 million views in under in 24 hours.
Clearly, there is still a lot of demand for the No Limit lyricist despite her lengthy hiatus from music. It would appear that she has been able to renegotiate her contract with Atlantic which has now placed her sophomore album back on track.
Of course, this is just an assumption based on the fact that Cardi has been vocal about getting back in the studio to drop a new body of work.
Most of the 27-year-old’s earnings are said to stem from her lucrative endorsement deals with FashionNova. Her first collection with the popular online clothing store reportedly pulled in over $10 million, so it was a no-brainer that the company would extend their partnership with Cardi for a follow-up the following year.
Cardi also makes a substantial income from appearances, charging up to $500,000 for performances and roughly $250,000 just to show up to an event.
And with over 70 million followers on Instagram, the Be Careful star can easily pull in over $100,000 to post a sponsored post on her page, so while she’s not been making money from her music, Cardi has certainly found enough sources of recurring revenue to keep up with her lavish lifestyle.
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Maurice is a writer from Germany. He has a Bachelor’s in Film and a Master’s in Film & Communication. Maurice is a self-proclaimed reader by day and reality TV watcher by night, with a passion for all things pop culture.