At this point, the Cardi B and Nicki Minaj beef is going to go on for as long as 50 Cent and Ja Rule’s. Twenty years from now, which one is going to be the 50, hanging on to the petty for dear life and buying out stadium seats for the sole purpose of being an immature dick? Nicki, right? The comparison stops there though because 50 Cent was the certified winner of his battle with Ja Rule back in the ‘00s and Nicki isn’t winning sh-t right now. What Nicki is succeeding at is making Cardi look good and making herself look obsessive and jealous, two words I despise using to describe women. Those are two words I actively stay away from associating with women because usually the association is unfairly applied. Nicki Minaj has given me no choice. 

Dammit Nicki. 

Nicki Minaj STAYS messy and last night proved that her messiness knows no bounds. Cardi B was messy as hell last night too. Don’t get that twisted. These two deserve each other. These two were made for each other. But Cardi was being reactive. Let me lean into the immaturity of this whole situation and establish this playground point: Nicki Minaj started it. 

I’m not going to rehash the whole Cardi and Nicki beef. If you need a refresher on “MotorSport,” the song and Nicki verse that truly started it all, click here. If you want to relive the Fashion Week shoe-throwing incident of September 2018, I got you. That brings you up to speed to last night when Nicki and Cardi were both trending worldwide (with Cardi trending above Nicki LOL) and our Twitter feeds lit up like it was fight night with everyone choosing sides and giving hot takes on each round. It was so much better than Pay-Per-View. The catalyst to last night’s epic back-and-forth was Nicki’s Beats 1 Queen Radio show on Apple Music. 

Nicki used her show to go off about Fashion Week because of something Cardi’s sister said – it’s unclear. No one was talking about whatever Cardi B’s sister said. Now, everyone is talking about what Nicki said on Queen Radio. It was her 10th episode. She was supposed to be premiering her new song “Dip” with Tyga (I guess Tyga forgave Nicki for that time she told the world he had hair plugs). That should have been the story today. We should be talking about a new Nicki verse. Period. Instead, Nicki rehashed the Fashion Week event AGAIN and told an elaborate story about Rah Ali, Nicki’s friend who was on Love and Hip Hop with Cardi. Rah Ali was supposedly the person who gave Cardi the knot on her head after the Fashion Week altercation. And? NO ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT THIS. Here’s what Nicki said: 

“Rah really, really beat Cardi’s ass bad. Rah beat you so bad that I was mad at Rah. You went home and told people security hit you, and we let that ride for legal reasons… Anybody that wanna pull up the surveillance footage, I will give you $100,000.”

Nicki also mentioned “MotorSport” AGAIN and claimed that Cardi told 21 Savage not to work with Nicki. Why is anyone fighting to work with 21 Savage? Or Little Mix? What are we doing? There are also some elaborate claims about leaked numbers - Cardi thinks Nicki leaked hers so her fans could harass her, then she inadvertently leaked Nicki’s. THE MESS. Throughout Nicki’s Queen Radio episode, Nicki repeatedly says that she doesn’t want to be talking about Cardi. She says over and over that she doesn’t want to be doing this, that she’d rather embrace positivity. 

“I’m perfectly fine with never talking about this again.”

The first step to never talking about “this” again is to STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. Someone needs to sit Nicki down and say, “Sis, you are playing nobody but yourself. STOP TALKING.”

Before I get to Cardi’s responses, let’s note that a lot of Nicki and Cardi’s feud has to do with work. Aside from the Fashion Week ordeal (which was wrong, violence is never the answer, etc), Cardi and Nicki are fighting over missed collabs and rumours of interfering with each other’s careers. SPIN has a good breakdown of the work drama here. They’re trading jabs about who turned down ‘that deal’ or ‘this verse’ so that the other one could have it. It’s work sh-t. It’s the gritty, industry stuff that goes along with being two of the only female rappers in mainstream hip-hop. So many record execs and fashion brands, sitting in their boardrooms, probably say something like the following: “Let’s get Cardi B for that. If we can’t get Cardi, get Nicki.” And vice versa. It’s the nature of being rivals. Whether Cardi B and Nicki like it they are in this together and as long as they are both on top, they will never be, to borrow from another Queen of Petty, “excluded from [each other’s] narrative.” 

The thing is, I actually believe that Cardi B would like to be excluded. But Cardi B is not the person who is going to take the high road and stay silent when someone calls her out. It goes back to the authenticity I’m always praising Cardi for. She is who she says she is. If you say she’s lying about what went down in a fight and you’re accusing her of trying to sabotage your career, she’s going to take 10 selfie videos dragging your ass and post them on Instagram. She’s going to bring the RECEIPTS. No shame. I f-cking love her. I want this feud to die for the sake of women supporting women and, you know, feminism, but I am also so happy we were given the gift that is Cardi B clapping back at Nicki. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by CARDIVENOM (@iamcardib) on

“First you say you’ve got the footages, but then you say you wanna pay somebody $100,000 if they give you the footage? Yo, make sense when you’re talking!”

Cardi’s use of “footages” is going to go down as one of my favourite Cardi B moments of all time. I screamed in delight watching every single one of her videos. Please do yourself a favour if you haven’t already and go watch them all. She does not disappoint. The Chun-Li Jab? I died. POINT, CARDI. She also challenges Nicki to a physical fight and while I don’t condone violence, Cardi is not wrong that Nicki puts up a real tough exterior on her records and then hides behind her security in real life. Which one is the real Nicki? My favourite Cardi IG video is the last:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by CARDIVENOM (@iamcardib) on

“What you need to do is stop focusing on other people. Focus on yourself. Focus on your craft. Because you’re out here f-cking up your legacy looking like a f-cking hater.”

Whew. Cardi just said in four sentences what I’ve been droning on about Nicki for her entire Queen press cycle. She IS f-cking up her legacy. In response to Cardi, Nicki hit back. 

Oh, now Nicks wants to talk verses? Now, she wants to talk about music? When she was feuding with Remy Ma, she bragged about making hits. Now, she’s trying to establish herself as the better MC and you know what? I think she IS the better lyricist if she went bar for bar against Cardi but no one is talking about that because Nicki can’t get out of her own damn way. This tweet by writer and actress Rae Sanni puts it succinctly. 

It’s hard not to rally behind Cardi B, our “righteous heroine in a pumpkin colored wig” when Nicki won’t stop being 50 Cent levels of petty. It’s hard not to root for Cardi who is HILARIOUS even when she’s frustrated. It’s hard not to be on Team Cardi when Nicki ends the night talking out of both sides of her mouth. 

Cardi B reposted that tweet with the message, “Alright then! Let’s keep it positive and keep it pushing!” I mean, that’s a nice way to end the night but it makes Nicki look like she’s trying to be the bigger person when she’s the one who went low in the first place. You can’t call for positivity when you are the one who brought the negativity. Don’t start the fire if you’re going to complain about having to put it out. Don’t ignite the flame, fan it, and then marvel at why it’s burning. Nicki Minaj says she “won’t be discussing this nonsense anymore.” Sure, sis. I wish she would but you know come episode 11 of Queen Radio, Nicki’s going to be stoking that fire AGAIN. 

Here's Cardi at Power 105.1's Powerhouse 2018 last night.