Inside the wild world of Offset
LA ‘arrest’ may have been stunt for Cardi B’s hubby
He doesn’t talk t that way at home. It’s part of the street narrative, being from the streets. — Michael Woodward, Offset’s father figure, on the rapper’s public persona
IT was a “bad and boujee” moment, to quote Migos’ biggest hit, when Beverly Hills police stopped the trio’s superstar rapper Offset on Oct. 24 after he drove his $90,000 Jeep Cherokee Trackhawk past a Trump rally.
The 28-year-old — real name Kiari Cephus — was in Los Angeles to perform at “Every Vote Counts: A Celebration of Democracy,” a musical event hosted by Alicia Keys where Offset would burnish his new image as an activist for the voting campaign and the Biden-Harris ticket.
Offset spokesman Derrian Perry told The Post the rapper was driving to meet his wife, Cardi B, at the Hermès boutique to shop for clothes for the show.
But drama intervened, as it often does with the flashy couple, who married in 2017 and have split up twice and reunited twice since then — most recently, last month. She was charged with felony assault in an attack on a bartender she accused of sleeping with Offset, and pleaded not guilty at her 2019 arraignment. The couple have a daughter, Kulture, 2, who is the youngest of Offset’s four kids with four women.
What happened last week differs depending on who is talking: Offset’s team, the cops, or those who say rap’s power couple doesn’t do anything by accident and that Offset livestreaming the incident on Instagram was a shrewd move.
Lt. Max Subin told The Post that officers were responding to a radio call that Offset had been waving guns at Trump supporters. He
refused to get out of the car at first, loudly asking the officers if they knew who he was (as he told them, “I’m a f--king celebrity” and “Offset from the Migos. They got fans”) and threatening to sue. They handcuffed him while Offset livestreamed the incident to his millions of followers.
But the man Offset considers his father, a former history teacher and local NAACP president in Georgia, disputed Subin’s version of what went down.
Michael Woodward, 50, is technically the star’s stepfather and helped raise Offset with his wife Latabia, the rapper’s mother and manager. (Despite reports to the contrary, Offset is not related to fellow Migos members Quavo and Takeoff — who are uncle and nephew, respectively.)
“We find [the detainment] troubling and may take this up with the powers that be,” Woodward told The Post. “The Trump supporters attacked his car . . . Where’s the proof anyone was waving a gun? This is why the voter campaign is so important. The police drew their guns for a traffic violation. This is how black men are being killed in this country.”
Earlier that day, Cardi seemed to foreshadow Offset’s trouble in a series of Instagram videos showing the Trump rally and saying, “I really feel like we’re gonna get jumped.
“Trump supporters are everywhere. I’m scared,” she added. “Look at this . . . look at this! Look how they walking around with fake guns and covering their f--king face. I don’t like this s--t.”
Cardi was caught on video getting out of a Rolls-Royce, screaming at police to release her husband before being restrained by friends.
“We think it was a targeted attack,” Perry told the Post. “There was no reason to stop him.”
Ultimately, Offset was released without being arrested or charged and Cardi’s cousin, Marcelo Almanzar, 20, was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and brandishing it in public. He was released on $35,000 bail.
SOME observers of the couple — each reportedly worth some $30 million — say they are as good at manipulating the media as they are at making music.
Cardi B’s 2017 debut single, “Bodak Yellow,” has nearly 1 billion views on YouTube, as does Migos’ “Bad and Boujee,” from 2016. Since then, Cardi has racked up several chart-toppers, including this year’s “WAP” with Megan Thee Stallion, as well as a Grammy and a slew of other awards.
“Cardi B is one of those people I want to hate because she’s not that talented but, f--king hell, I love her,” a female hip-hop producer told The Post. “This bitch should not be famous. This is a stripper — no offense to strippers — who won a Grammy. But fair play to her. She did it. Then she got Offset.”
Just don’t mistake the pair for a hip-hop Romeo and Juliet, she said. “Love has nothing to do with it. The more they fight, the more press they get. These are not stupid people. Everything is a media stunt.”
Offset, who grew up in a middleclass suburban home outside Atlanta, talks so “street” in interviews, like last year on the syndicated “Breakfast Club” radio show, that it can be hard to understand him.
“No, he doesn’t talk that way at home,” Woodward said with a laugh. “But it’s part of the career narrative, being from the streets.”
The “career narrative” has worked. Migos formed in 2009 and since Drake’s remix of their “Versace” in 2013, the group has soared, tying The Beatles for the most simultaneous spots on Billboard’s Hot 100. They also have a forthcoming new album to promote.
“Migos celebrates some of the very worst aspects of so-called black culture, like cars and drugs and misogyny,” hip-hop historian JayQuan told The Post. “Ironically, the rappers who were the best were really from the ’hood, like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. They were from the worst part of America at the time. But they never promoted the things that went on in their neighborhood. They told cautionary tales. Migos is the opposite.”
Offset recently filmed a voting public-service announcement in which he said a parole officer told him he could never vote after his first felony conviction at 17 — technically not true in Georgia.
Cardi comes from the actual ’hood. The daughter of a strict Trinidadian mother and taxidriver father, she split time between the Highbridge section of The Bronx and her grandmother’s apartment in Washington Heights.
Now she spends a lot of her time in Offset’s world — Atlanta’s “black Hollywood” — where they hit up places like the famed strip club Magic City, but just as often hole up in one of Offset’s mansions or with his family.
“They come over here, they’re just a normal couple,” said Woodward. “They love me to make them Spanish rice, chicken, ribs. Cardi B loves my crab legs.”
Things were not always so chill between Woodward and his daughter-in-law. When Cardi first announced she was splitting from Offset in late 2018, Woodward reportedly posted a rant on Facebook calling her a “hotheaded female” with “psychological issues” who “seems to want to take everything to social media without regard to the devastation it has on others.”
Woodward denied that he posted anything like that, despite screenshots to the contrary, and said: “Everything has blown over and me and Cardi get along great.”
Despite a turbulent past, Woodward predicts great things.
“My wife is the brains and everything she and Offset do is about the future, the future, the future,” Woodward said. “They’re investing and Offset is expanding into acting, producing, you name it. Cardi B is the same way. They want careers that last and they want to hold on to their money.”