Continuous rise to fame
Cardi B has come a long way and it seems nothing, not even a petty beef with Nicki Minaj, can stop her. tracks the ratchet legend’s career
“I DON’T dance now, I make money moves…,” rapped Cardi B.
We may have absent-mindedly rapped along to Cardi B on Bodack Yellow, but what we didn’t realise, was that she actually meant business…
She was stating her intention to make real money moves and boy has she stuck to her word.
The first time I came across Cardi B was on Being Mary Jane, where she was basically playing herself – a loud, smart-mouthed black girl from the Bronx on a reality show. I liked her comedic timing and how she was able to hold her own against Gabrielle Union.
Then came Love & Hip-hop: New York where she was in her element, even going as far as throwing a shoe at a rival. Unsurprisingly, it’s become one of the things she’s most famous for, thanks to throwing a shoe at rival Nicki Minaj at Carine Roitfeld’s fashion icons party during the New York Fashion Week in September.
Cardi B has come a long way from her stripper days and dropping mixtapes on Soundcloud. She’s on the biggest song this year, Girls
Like You with Maroon 5, which has spent more than two months on top of the Billboard 100 chart; her album, Invasion Of Privacy topped the Billboard 200 album chart, she has performed at all the major music award ceremonies this year, winning a few of them too.
She rocked Coachella while she was heavily pregnant, and then revealed to the world she was actually married to Offset, one-third of trap trio,
Migos.
And to cap it all, she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2018.
When the fashion week squabble with Nicki Minaj happened, so many forecast the end of Cardi’s career. And yet it was this bad girl vibe that has somehow endeared her to so many people, especially those in the music and fashion industry.
It’s common knowledge that true influence and success comes when fashion designers and the industry cannot have enough of you. It’s that infamy that has had the Kardashianjenners (and their men) become hot tickets at fashion weeks; where the entertainment industry’s problematic faves are always seated in the front row and never miss an A-list shindig.
Their edginess and unpredictability makes them attractive to brands and it’s almost guaranteed to earn them front page headline news.
Cardi B has quickly realised that being true to herself – loud, ratchet and unapologetically so – is her biggest social currency. You know exactly what you are going to get with Cardi and that has endeared her to many. That’s why she’s able to be a favourite of so many designers.
Tom Ford, Dolce and Gabbana, Jeremy Scott, Christian Siriano and Prabal Gurung are fans of the rapper, decking her out in their designs fresh off the runway. Anna Wintour knows Cardi and is said to find her interesting – she managed to get invited to the Met Gala in her first year of relevancy, a feat that took Kim Kardashian-west and her family close to a decade to do.
Cardi is releasing her fashion collaboration with popular fast fashion brand, Fashion Nova on Thursday. She’s been the brand’s influencer since 2014 and their relationship has seen both brands grow in popularity. It’s expected that her collaboration with the e-commerce brand will be sold out within hours which is no easy feat, especially when Fashion Nova is one of the fastest growing fashion brands in the industry right now.
Tom Ford announced a lipstick named after her, which sold out within hours; last year she signed a deal with shoe brand, Steve Madden and now Reebok recently announced that Cardi is their new brand ambassador. She’s the new addition to the list of women the sportswear label has picked to appeal to a female audience. She joins Victoria Beckham, Gigi Hadid, Ariana Grande and Gal Gadot.
Not bad for a girl who not so long ago was an internet personality, making us laugh (and cringe) on Vine, Instagram and Snapchat. Not bad for a girl everyone thought was a one-hit wonder. Not bad for a girl many thought would repel fashion brands. Instead it’s been all things rosy for her, not to mention her thriving music career.
She’s now making even more money moves. Which she totally warned us about.