{"id":147104,"date":"2025-09-19T09:19:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T09:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/147104\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T09:19:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T09:19:06","slug":"cardi-b-am-i-the-drama-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/147104\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardi B ‘Am I the Drama?’ Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tShe\u2019s baaaaack. Cardi B<\/a> has finally returned with Am I the Drama?, one of the most hotly awaited second albums in history. Incredibly, it\u2019s been seven years since the Bronx queen crashed into the music world with her classic debut Invasion of Privacy,<\/a> like a one-woman explosion of neon hip-hop flash, making everyone else sound tame by comparison. Yet in all those years, the self-proclaimed \u201cBrimcess\u201d has never been far from the spotlight or the headlines, without ever making a wrong musical move, scoring hits whenever she\u2019s in the mood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Am I the Drama?, Cardi makes up for lost time with a massive comeback triumph, standing tall in her bloodier-than-ever shoes. She\u2019s got a long list of scores to settle, enemies to crush, crowns to claim.\u00a0As always, she brings so much larger-than-life personality to the party that she could coast on charisma if she wanted. But Cardi\u2019s been in the news lately for everything except her music, so it\u2019s a trip to hear her finally get to cut loose and have fun. She\u2019s out to remind everyone she\u2019s looser, wilder, less predictable, just plain funnier than anyone else in the game. As she declares, \u201cAll of my cars is chauffeured\/I ain\u2019t touched door handles in years!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe lives up to her RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race-inspired album title, with her Alfred Hitchcock horror-flick artwork, because she\u2019s always the drama. She kicks off the album with \u201cDead,\u201d opening with a collage of news reports about her on a murderous rampage, aimed at rival rappers. But Cardi proves all their fears are true, roasting her foes left and right, as R&B singer Summer Walker coos the hook. \u201cI\u2019m collecting body bags like they purses,\u201d Cardi warns. \u201cI don\u2019t even rap no more, I drive hearses\/Bitches got some nerve and they be nervous\/Don\u2019t tell me, tell customer service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe brings that verve all over the album, with guest shots from everyone from sexy-drill king Cash Cobain<\/a> to South African star Tyla<\/a>. She duets with Selena Gomez<\/a> on the high-spirited synth-pop banger \u201cPick It Up\u201d and with Janet Jackson<\/a> on the Eighties R&B-style \u201cPrinciple.\u201d In \u201cWhat\u2019s Going On,\u201d she waves goodbye to a cheating ex-husband (\u201cYou don\u2019t like that I moved on and I hate that for you\u201d \u2014 hmmm, wonder who she has in mind) while Lizzo<\/a> slams it home by singing the hook from 4 Non Blondes, a real Nineties rock flex.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tShe bids a bittersweet goodbye to Offset<\/a> \u2014 mostly bitter \u2014 on tracks like the touching \u201cMan of Your Word,\u201d where she laments their divorce over a warped steel-drum loop. \u201cAs a wife I should have realized when you was hurt\/But instead I put my music first,\u201d she says, taking the high road when she admits, \u201cA lot of pressure when a bitch an icon.\u201d But she doesn\u2019t hold back from talking tough, saying, \u201cYou was my twin, you was my person\/Said you was me but the evil version.\u201d And then there\u2019s the Southern club raunch of \u201cOutside,\u201d with the vicious hook, \u201cNext time you see your mama, tell her how she raised a bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCardi has always been a true multi-media pop-culture visionary, going from dancing in strip clubs to Vine stardom to a reality-TV fame on Love & Hip-Hop: New York, even starring with Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers. Some might have assumed at first that this woman was just an influencer dabbling in rap. But make no mistake: music has always been where her heart is, and one of her most underrated strengths has always been her wide-ranging sonic imagination. On Invasion, she slid from 1960s Bronx boogaloo (\u201cI Like It\u201d) to 1990s Dirty South bounce (\u201cBickenhead\u201d) to 1950s doo-wop (\u201cThru Your Phone\u201d), dabbling in all these different styles, yet claiming them as her own.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe brings all that ambition to Am I the Drama?. Whatever style she tries on, she comes out of the dressing room, struts out the door, and wears it home. \u201cBodega Baddie\u201d\u00a0 is high-speed hyped-up space-salsa, with Cardi saying \u201cI\u2019m like Selena, you can tell by my demeanor,\u201d then throwing in the punch line \u201cDame m\u00e1s gasoliiiiina!\u201c She ends the album with two of her biggest hits, \u201cWAP\u201d (with Megan Thee Stallion<\/a>) and \u201cUp,\u201d both over four years old \u2014 yet neither one sounds dated, because everyone else has spent the past four years imitating them.<\/p>\n

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\n\tLet\u2019s face it, we love Cardi when she\u2019s happy, but we worship her when she\u2019s mad, and she\u2019s out for blood on this album. Her beef with Bia seems to take a nasty turn on \u201cPretty and Petty,\u201d as she taunts, \u201cI\u2019m Cardi B, shorty\/Who you wanna be, shorty\/You from Boston? Let\u2019s have a little tea party.\u201d She keeps twisting the knife, asking, \u201cWhy you always\u00a0at Diddy house?\/I heard they combed that kittty\u00a0out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cImaginary Playerz\u201d seems to put Nicki Minaj<\/a> on blast, \u201cThe shit these bitches be braggin\u2019 about is like, shit I was doin\u2019 in, like, 2016-type shit,\u201d she proclaims. \u201cYou bitches don\u2019t even know the difference between vintage and archive!\u201d \u201cBetter Than You\u201d is a riotous blast of attitude, over a Seventies soul loop that evokes UGK and OutKast<\/a>\u2019s \u201cInt\u2019l Players Anthem (I Choose You),\u201d with an assist from Cash Cobain. At the end, the music speeds up into a higher key, as he reminds anyone who needs reminding that Cardi reigns supreme.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s been so long since Invasion of Privacy, Cardi\u2019s had three babies since then, and as she just announced this week, she\u2019s expecting another child with her boyfriend, NFL star Stefon Diggs. She pays tribute to him all over the album, in tenderly romantic R&B love jams like \u201cNice Guy\u201d with Tyla and \u201cOn My Back\u201d with Lourdiz. Best of all, there\u2019s \u201cSafe,\u201d a poignant duet with Kehlani<\/a>. \u201cYou know I know you know that I\u2019m that bitch right?\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I spaz and I crash, you ain\u2019t gon\u2019 dip, right?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tBut whether she\u2019s celebrating domestic bliss or leaving heelprints on her rivals, she\u2019s never dull \u2014 Cardi just doesn\u2019t know how. She\u2019s got all the mega-pop vision of her idol Madonna. \u201cIf it was up to me, I would do songs like \u2018Erotica\u2019 because that\u2019s what I like,\u201d she told Rolling Stone last year. \u201cI like Madonna\u2019s Erotica, \u2018Justify My Love.\u2019 If I was on that level that Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s at, I would do songs like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe world has been eager for this album to the point where even Young Thug<\/a> pushed back his new UY Scuti a week out of mutual respect, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s a ladies\u2019 day.\u201d But the fact is, long before the camera and the music biz and the whole world fell in love with her, she\u2019d already spent her whole life getting knocked down 9 times and getting up ten. Nothing ever holds her back. Am I The Drama? is the fittingly grand return for a queen who never left the throne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She\u2019s baaaaack. Cardi B has finally returned with Am I the Drama?, one of the most hotly awaited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[13217,67710,6491,96,67711,67712,26443,2835,25797,67713,67714,30181,67715,56,54,55,67716],"class_list":{"0":"post-147104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-cardi-b","9":"tag-cash-cobain","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-janet-jackson","13":"tag-kehlani","14":"tag-lizzo","15":"tag-megan-thee-stallion","16":"tag-nicki-minaj","17":"tag-offset","18":"tag-outkast","19":"tag-selena-gomez","20":"tag-tyla","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-unitedkingdom","24":"tag-young-thug"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}