CARDI B — JUST SO DAMN REAL, HOPE SHE NEVER CHANGES
Celebrities are sphinxes, idealised agglomerations of the best cuts of a type of meat that the human race has to offer. Oprah, for example, is all the best bits of spirituality and joyous self-actualisation. Beyoncé is what happens when you give glamour a body and Rihanna is probably the coolest person in the world.
The point being that for all intents and purposes, celebrities aren’t real people. Until now, that’s how we liked them — aloof and unrelatable. But there is a new goddess in town and she has upset the divine applecart.
If you have spent the last two years in isolation then the name Cardi B may be unfamiliar to you. Born Belcalis Almanzar, the New York-based stripper turned hip-pop sensation has built her temple on a foundation of humanness. The recent release of her debut album, Invasion of Privacy, and the trajectory that got her to that point has become legend.
If you hop on Instagram and scroll back to her genesis, somewhere around 2016, you will find a young lady with wonky teeth, a delicious disregard for decorum and a can-do attitude towards stealing your man.
Back then she stripped and starred on a reality show. Fast forward to her revelation, in which time she has racked up a number of hits and even pipped Taylor Swift to No 1 spot on the charts and the only thing that has changed about her are her teeth. She is still just as unassumingly forthright as ever.
In a world where relatable has become PR gobbledygook for someone who occasionally goes through real emotions, Cardi B is fresh. She’s that rowdy friend you used to hang out with back before you got a fancier job and started attending craft gin festivals. She’s the type of friend who always had Vaseline in her pocket in case a fight broke out and couldn’t have cared less how you pronounced Moët & Chandon. In essence Cardi B is relatable because she is all of us before we picked up airs and graces.
She’s a living, breathing, lisping, tooth-sucking human and unapologetic about it. Let’s hope we never crucify her for it.
Invasion of Privacy is out now.