{"id":303165,"date":"2026-02-17T21:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T21:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/303165\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T21:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T21:35:07","slug":"cardi-b-review-ambitious-spectacle-and-sizzling-choreography-cardi-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/303165\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardi B review \u2013 ambitious spectacle and sizzling choreography | Cardi B"},"content":{"rendered":"

As anticipation mounts in Los Angeles<\/a>\u2019s Kia Forum for the first of Cardi B<\/a>\u2019s two sold-out shows at the arena, the rapper plays an extended visual depicting a murder of crows. The image nods to the cover of her latest studio release, 2025\u2019s score-settling Am I the Drama?<\/a>, in which the birds surround the rapper behind a storm-laced sky ready to burst. The reference is intentional: crows are whip-smart, cunning and capable of clinging to deeply held grudges for decades. Cardi\u2019s arrival on stage tonight further underscores the ominous feeling; she appears with a long shadow behind her as a slice of album opener Dead plays: \u201cI\u2019m collecting body bags like they purses \/ I don\u2019t even rap no more, I drive hearses.\u201d<\/p>\n

She emerges in a haute couture trench coat resembling battle armor and with a shock of white in her dark hair, like Cruella de Vil if she\u2019d grown up in the Bronx. Cardi then launches into the braggadocious Hello with pyrotechnics and smoke effects, the message clear: when someone crosses her, she doesn\u2019t just want to embarrass them. She wants them in the ground.<\/p>\n

On Am I the Drama? Cardi is at her most incisive when she\u2019s ripping into an enemy. On the aptly named Pretty & Petty, she focuses her ire on the rapper Bia, who dissed Cardi on a 2024 track by brutally snarling: \u201cName five Bia songs, gun pointin\u2019 to your head \/ Bow, I\u2019m dead.\u201d Similarly, the highest points of the musician\u2019s ambitious LA show also revolve around snarling back at haters with expressive aplomb as she blitzes through three dozen songs in just under two hours.<\/p>\n

Cardi begins the six-act concert with a series of brutal numbers, including the ferocious Magnet, her vocals seething as she dials into a nemesis she deems \u201ctrash since birth\u201d. An ode to the rare people with integrity, Salute, follows, where she clutches a fake rifle from below the stage, firing off sparks into the sky. After the menacing double hook of Check Please and Trophies, Cardi appears almost taken aback by her own savagery. She playfully proclaims to the crowd: \u201cWe started very motherfucking violent!\u201d<\/p>\n

For the show\u2019s second act, Cardi turns her focus to the lovers who scorned her. A poignant rendition of Ring, a plaintive duet with Kehlani<\/a> about trying to understand why someone stopped calling, is performed supine on the floor and trapped in a birdcage suspended from the ceiling. Dancers act out scornful scenes of suspected cheating, most viscerally with Thru Your Phone, a 2018 track that details catching a paramour whose lies were undone by technology.<\/p>\n

Besides gleeful revenge, Cardi\u2019s calling card is rampant horniness, and she romps through raunchy numbers including her remix of Blueface\u2019s Thotiana, employing a chair for a seductive dance routine. Her timing was a little off here: at her Las Vegas show two days prior, she briefly fell off the chair during this number and cheekily blamed<\/a> \u201cthe government\u201d for the error \u2013 suggesting that she\u2019s still got some kinks to smooth out in the show, particularly during the more tamped-down energy of tonight\u2019s fourth act when she seemed a little winded. But the crowd is with her throughout the spectacle, bellowing the words and grinding during the final two acts, when Cardi unleashes her most high-octane hits and choreography where she sizzles on a revolving carousel resembling a strip club.<\/p>\n

The most stirring moments of the show nodded to Cardi\u2019s Latin roots, with an act featuring her boogaloo trap hit I Like It and the breakneck-speed Bodega Baddie. In the latter, a defiantly merengue-steeped ode to her lineage, she salsa dances as her dancers hoist flags of Latin American countries high onstage. It\u2019s a pointed touch for Cardi B, who made a crack<\/a> about her fans \u201cjumping\u201d ICE at the tour\u2019s opener last week. Her message was clear: let them eat crow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As anticipation mounts in Los Angeles\u2019s Kia Forum for the first of Cardi B\u2019s two sold-out shows at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-303165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}