Anais Gutierrez
Rapper Cardi made musical history on Monday when her single ‘Bodak Yellow’ topped the Billboard Hot 100. The singer’s hit is the first song by a female rapper to top the Billboard Hot 100 since Lauryn Hill rocked the music world in 1998.
In an unprecedented move in hip-hop history. Many fellow rappers congratulated the singer for making history. All but Azaleia Banks who took to Twitter to deliver all but nice words.
Making history
After a prolonged battle with Taylor Swift’s ‘Look What You Made Me Do,’ Cardi B has landed her first number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Bodak Yellow.’
Despite possible attempts by Swift‘s camp to boost streams by lowering the price of ‘LWYMMD’ on iTunes and embedding its music video within a making-of for that same video, Cardi still reigns victorious (“Bodak” also had its price reduced).
Not only that, but Swift was doubly bested by both ‘Bodak Yellow’ and Post Malone’s “rockstar,” featuring 21 Savage.
It’s a historic achievement for Cardi. She becomes just one of five female MCs with a No. 1 hit on the Hot 100 following Lauryn Hill, Lil Kim, Shawnna and Iggy Azalea — and the only one besides Hill to sit on the throne unaccompanied — as well as the first artist of 2017 to reach the chart’s peak with her debut Hot 100 entry.
Born Belcalis Almanzar, Cardi B is a Dominican and Trinidadian native of the Bronx, New York. She’s unapologetic about her past. She’s open about the fact that she dropped out of school to escape her abusive boyfriend and become a stripper — and she also isn’t interested in changing how she speaks.
She proudly boasts about using and discarding men to make her way to the top. A female flip on the script usually followed by the rappers in a male-dominated industry.
It’s tempting to read a lot into the broader meanings of this event; how hip-hop is now the dominant music of the US, how this is apparently the first solo rap hit by a female artist to top the charts since Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” almost 20 years ago, how – in Trump’s America – a Trinidadian-Dominican woman from the South Bronx triumphed over a figure that some see as an emblem of white privilege and who’s been described by Nazis as an “Aryan Goddess”.
You could analyze it from those lenses, or you could just enjoy the song, as millions have. This is a good day. Celebrate it.
The importance of this move
Cardi herself defended her brand of feminism back in 2016 when she responded to critics with an Instagram video.
“If you believe in equal rights of men and women, that makes you a feminist,” she said.
“I don’t understand how you bitches feel like being a feminist is a woman that has an education, that have a degree. That is not being a feminist. You discouraging a certain type of woman, that definitely doesn’t make you one . . . ”
“At the end of the day, I’m gonna encourage any type of woman. You don’t have to be a woman like me for me to encourage and support you and tell you yes, bitch, keep on going.”
But in addition to topping the Hot 100 being a historic moment for Cardi and women, in general, is its significance for women in hip-hop, specifically.
Not only is this a long time coming (19 years!), but because successful, mainstream female rappers are few and far between, the landscape is very competitive, and we rarely see them support one another.
Congratulations to a fellow NEW YAWKA on a RECORD BREAKING achievement. Bardi, this is the only thing that matters!!! Enjoy it💕💞🎀 @iamcardib
— NICKI MINAJ (@NICKIMINAJ) September 25, 2017
Congratulations @iamcardib for having a #1 record in the country that's not as easy as it seem this huge🙌🏾 May u have continued blessings🙏🏾
— Missy Elliott (@MissyElliott) September 25, 2017
Unfortunately, not everybody celebrated
Hip-Hop artists showered Cardi B with praise on Monday as the Bronx rapper’s summer hit ‘Bodak Yellow’ nabbed the No.1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and went platinum.
Azealia Banks, however, was not in the congratulatory mood. Banks hopped on Twitter Monday evening to share her thoughts on Cardi’s success.
Banks began her now-deleted rant by calling out Cardi for being a “poor mans Nicki” and called out Power 105. 1 Breakfast Club host Charlamagne that God for supporting ‘Bodak Yellow,’ but not giving other female MCs such as Remy Ma and Nicki Minaj the same support.
“Charlemagne and black men in hip-hop should have gotten me, Remy AND Nicki a number one before they gave cardi or iggy one,” she wrote.
“But literally white guys buy black men away from black women and it’s soo cringe.”
Never one to hold back her thoughts, Banks added that “black industry men” are “spinning this ‘for the culture’ story. They are simply letting white men at Atlantic buy them into hating their own women.”
Cardi hasn’t responded to Banks’ criticism but took to social media to thank all the artists who congratulated her. Nicki Minaj, Missy Elliott, Remy Ma, and Migos were among the growing pool of artists who shouted out Cardi for ‘Bodak Yellow’ success.
Source: The Washington Post
