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Entitled fans have been relentless amid the wait for Cardi's 'Invasion of Privacy' follow-up, which is expected to arrive later this year.
Now just over six years removed from her Grammy-winning debut studio album Invasion of Privacy, Cardi B is nearing the end of the road with her much-speculated-about sophomore effort. But in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Cardi reveals just how trying the demands and complaints of the general public can be when one is in the middle of the artistic process, especially when it comes to petulance from the hopelessly entitled.
Speaking with Mankaprr Conteh, Cardi, who recently linked with SZA for a remix to Flo Milli’s “Never Lose Me,” revealed that she was brought to tears by a “bitch” on TikTok who said she had been “cosplaying” as a rap artist and should instead become a full-blown influencer.
“Like yesterday, I was scrolling through TikTok and a bitch made me cry,” Cardi said. “She was just like, ‘She has got to give it up. She’s better off being an influencer. You was cosplaying being a rapper. Because you don’t take it seriously. That’s why you don’t put out your music.’ And it’s like, I take my music so fucking seriously that that’s why I don’t put it out. Because if it’s not perfect to my ear, if every fucking word doesn’t sound like it’s pronounced right, if the beat is overpowering the words or the words is overpowering the beat, I don’t want to put it out.”
I’m getting better and bettererrrr, I do not see no competitorrrs: presenting my fifth @RollingStone cover story on the one and only @iamcardib https://t.co/Wd9Irirpoq pic.twitter.com/bPLQFgViPs
As Cardi explained, these kinds of comments are “very hurtful” to her as someone who does indeed treat her art with respect, and they surely have an impact on anyone involved in similarly creative work.
Time-related demands are too frequently leveled at artists across genres and eras, most often from those with a deep-rooted misunderstanding of what it even means to be an artist. An album is done when it’s done—same for books, films, series, paintings, et al. For some, that results in what may appear to be a strict something-new-every-two-years strategy, while for others there would appear to be no pattern at all. It’s why you hear so many repeated utterances of the permanently relevant (and NBA-originating) phrase, “Trust the process.”
For all intents and purposes, it sounds like Cardi is trusting the process. Impatient fans would do well to follow her lead. In fact, as confirmed in the RS piece (despite a recent tweet suggesting otherwise), the Invasion of Privacy follow-up is indeed slated for release later this year.
See the full RS feature, complete with photos shot by Adrienne Raquel, here.
Earlier this year, Cardi sat down with Speedy Morman for a Complex conversation of the 360 variety. At one point in the 39-minute interview, Cardi spoke candidly about the pressure she felt in 2023 to drop new music and how listeners’ constant pushing about the album resulted in her feeling “afraid to do everything.”
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