Breaking Down Their Bars & Diss Tracks

Cardi B didn’t need to say BIA’s name. She didn’t have to. Her voice was enough because the shots were specific. Then, when Cardi dropped her sophomore effort, Am I the Drama? and rapped, “Diarrhea BIA, breath so stank you can smell her ‘fore you see her,” on “Pretty & Petty,” it was just confirmation. What had started as speculation was now stamped and packaged in a two-minute track with a sneer baked in.

Yet, to hear the beat drop without knowing the build-up would be missing half the story. Things went left when fans, and allegedly BIA, believed they had been catching similarities in the rappers’ songs. Cardi’s delivery was compared to BIA’s signature flow. The New York hitmaker claimed she never imitated BIA’s style, but it was close enough to raise questions. In Rap, where resemblences can look like biting, questions like that don’t just disappear. They fester. This is especially when the artists involved are women, both with something to prove and navigating an industry that still treats comparison like currency.

So, the songs started stacking. A remix here. A feature there. Each verse a little sharper. Each rollout a little louder. Subtlety gave way to precision. Then came “Pretty & Petty,” and the soft gloves came off. There was no room left for plausible deniability. Cardi wasn’t hinting. She was firing.

However, this isn’t about gossip and it’s not about Instagram. This is about what was said on record and what was coded in rhyme. It’s the rare Rap feud that didn’t need to go viral to be real. It already was on wax. So we listen. Closely.

The Cadence Claim & Musical Jabs

The public whisper started with “Like What (Freestyle),” dropped by Cardi in early 2024. Listeners noted its interpolation of Missy Elliott’s “She’s a B*tch,” the same sample BIA used on her track “I’m That (B*tch).” That sample overlap alone may’ve triggered extra scrutiny, but what stung more was how Cardi delivered certain lines as she was accused of leaning on BIA’s flow. Then, BIA seemingly hinted online that she agreed, stating that she felt as though Cardi used the track to sneak diss her. The Grammy winner took notice.

Cardi spit, “First, that b*tch hate me, then this b*tch hate me / And somehow, they link up and they become friends, like, how?” Critics claimed that this looked to be a nod at BIA and Nicki Minaj who collaborated on “Whole Lotta Money (Remix)” and “Super Freaky Girl (Queen Mix)” years prior. Moreover, Cardi also claimed “Like What” was recorded long before knowing of BIA using the same Missy sample, and that the accusations of copying her were false. Still, the planted seed took root.

Cardi B & BIA: When Things Started To Go Sour

Prior to all of that unfolding, in 2023, tweets reportedly resurfaced of BIA supporting Cardi B. On the surface, this isn’t a big deal, but social media users quickly placed BIA into their crosshairs. She faced allegations of “switching up” on Cardi to go work with Nicki Minaj, but in a livestream, she denied flipping on a friend.

“Sweetie, I didn’t switch up on anybody because I don’t know Cardi in real life,” she said. “I’ve never met Cardi, we’ve never had a conversation. Like, I don’t have no issues with her, it’s all love, but I don’t know her. Y’all do too much on this app, I don’t know her in real life. We don’t know each other. We don’t know them. Ask me about somebody I know. Ask me about somebody I’ve met in real life, not online.”

Just when you thought things were settling down, Cardi made an appearance on 360 With Speedy, where she spoke about an unreleased Ice Spice “Munch” remix. She told Speedy Morman that she struggled with finding her pace on a Drill beat, which didn’t ruffle many feathers until Dreezy’s “B*tch Duh (Remix)” arrived, featuring BIA, Lakeyah, and KenTheMan.

“I hear b*tches poppin’ sh*t and that’s so funny to me / How you say you runnin’ down but you can’t walk on the beat?” BIA questioned on the track. Later, she returned with, “I can never turn my phone on just to cry … If you wanna get up with me, tell that b*tch that we’re outside.” Pot stirrers were quick to claim that BIA was again referencing Cardi, this time attacking her for crying on a livestream about her marriage fallout with Offset.

Cardi Claps Back On “Wanna Be (Remix)”

The first explicit shot came in May 2024, after Cardi hopped on the remix to Glorilla and Megan Thee Stallion‘s spicy “Wanna Be” collaboration. To note that she didn’t hold back would be an understatement. “Hope she talk like that when I see her (Woo) / B*tch, please, don’t nobody wanna be ya bee ya (BIA) (Ah) / Cheap lookin’ ass ho, weak lookin’ ass ho / Great Value me lookin’ ass ho / Girl, these b*tches be p*ssy / Delete every tweet lookin’ ass ho.”

After hearing the track, BIA didn’t waste any time reacting on Twitter. She shared a video of two women at a Rap battle, where one was verbally annihilating the other.

BIA Responds With “SUE MEEE?”

In May 2024, BIA tweeted: “B*TCHES IS WACK. B*TCHES IS TRASH.I SHOULD HANG B*TCHES RIGHT OVER MY KNEE, THE WAY I BE PUTTIN MY BELT TO THEY ASSSSSSSS.” She also previewed and released “SUE MEEE?,” a full-blown diss track that called Cardi out by name. BIA questioned her authenticity, mocked the way she talked, accused her of imitation, and took aim at her motherhood. They were the kind of insults that didn’t need decoding. Obviously, for Cardi, it crossed a line.

“Put her ass in the ground ’til she had to give me my flowers (Huh)
I was up in the Bronx and they said I’m good in the towers (Facts)
Put that sh*t on God that you ain’t change your face to mine
I’ll get on your ass so I don’t have to waste no time
Say you love yourself, b*tch, you wouldn’t put that on your kids (Huh)
All that surgery and how your body looks so mid”
-“SUE MEEE”

To make matters even worse, for the song’s cover art, BIA also used a screenshot of Offset’s social media post where he accused Cardi of cheating on him. Whether exaggerated or accurate, BIA used it as fuel. This time, Cardi didn’t immediately respond with a track. Instead, she took to Instagram Live to speak on the situation in her own words, shifting the battle from studio to stream.

Cardi B’s “Pretty & Petty” And The Escalation

Unsurprisingly, Cardi B had been circling the beef for months. However, “Pretty & Petty” was the moment she brought it front and center. The line “Diarrhea BIA, breath so stank you can smell her ‘fore you see her” was a direct callout that stripped away metaphor and subtlety. Cardi made sure that this wasn’t going to be a sideline swipe. This was war.

She moved quickly from insult to erasure. “Name five BIA songs, gun pointed to your head. Bow, I’m dead,” she rapped, turning BIA’s lower profile into a punchline. The implication was to let the world, and BIA, know, that she wasn’t competition. Further, Cardi made it clear that for her, BIA barely registered.

“You a fake ghetto b*tch and I don’t like you (I don’t like)
Your mama used to f*ck around with white men
Disgustin’ (Huh), girl, you triflin’
I hate when a b*tch think she cute ’cause she lightskin (Look)
Mm, talkin’ about Kulture, you wildin’ (You wildin’)
Look, meatball, you Italian
I’m Cardi B, shorty, who you wanna be, shorty (Huh)
You from Boston, let’s have a little tea party (Hmm)
Why you got kicked out of that condo?
Why you be online and be lyin’, though?
And Why you always at Diddy house? (Huh?)
I heard they combed that little kitty out (Ha)
Tell these folks what’s it’s really ’bout (What’s it’s really ’bout)”
-“Pretty & Petty”

Elsewhere in the track, Cardi made sure to question BIA’s label situation, throwing in a quick jab at Epic Records while implying their investment wasn’t paying off. She painted BIA’s entire presence in the industry as manufactured and underwhelming. Still, “Pretty & Petty” was about control. Cardi’s delivery swung between smirk and snarl. Her tone walked a line between finesse and Bronx aggression, letting the title of the song do exactly what it promised. She was pretty. She was petty. And she had time.

The Ongoing Fallout

Cardi gave us a diss track while throwing down a challenge. For a moment, it felt like the room went still because the target had a choice to make. Respond with fire, or pull the bigger-artist card and downplay it.

BIA chose something in between. She didn’t ignore “Pretty & Petty,” but she didn’t bite hard either. In an interview with Hot 97, she waved off the track’s sting by suggesting Cardi didn’t pen her bars. “What am I gonna do, beef with Pardison?” BIA told the station, emphasizing that she wasn’t going to subject herself to beefing with Pardison Fontaine, who is known to ghostwrite for Cardi B. A jab wrapped in denial, with the implication being that Cardi couldn’t have penned those shots on her own. It was shade without smoke and a way to deflect without engaging. Yet, the interview didn’t land as a power move. It read more like dodge than dominance.

“This isn’t even about her,” BIA also said during a stop at The Breakfast Club. “It’s not to say I don’t have a response, but… where I’m at right now, that was a year ago.” However, BIA added that she could still retaliate “any time.” She further revealed that she decided not to put a diss track on her recently released debut studio album, BIANCA, because she didn’t want to make the record about Cardi. “There’s so much more importance to my message and what I’m here for than Rap beef.”

The thing about Rap feuds is that the music is only one of the many complicated layers. The rest lives in interviews, features, social media, even silence. Especially the silence. BIA’s refusal to fully clap back after “Pretty & Petty” was both restraint and a tactic. It’s one that let Cardi’s aggression sit by itself, loud and unchallenged, for longer than expected.

Maybe that’s the strategy. Let the audience fill in the blanks. Let the fans debate what’s a diss and what’s delusion. The industry perceives perception as currency, and sometimes the most powerful move is knowing when not to move at all.

Breaking Down Their Bars & Diss Tracks

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