BIGSONG:
Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar (/ˈbɛlkəliːz ɑːlˈmænzɑːr/, Spanish: [alˈmansaɾ]; born October 11, 1992), known professionally as Cardi B, is an American rapper and songwriter. She is known for her aggressive flow and candid lyrics. Born and raised in New York City, she became an internet celebrity by achieving popularity on Vine and Instagram. From 2015 to 2017, she appeared as a regular cast member on the VH1 reality television series Love & Hip Hop: New York, which depicted her pursuit of her music aspirations, and released two mixtapes—Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1 (2016) and Vol. 2 (2017).
Her first studio album, Invasion of Privacy (2018), debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was named the number-one female rap album of the 2010s by Billboard. Critically acclaimed, it made Cardi B the only woman to win the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album as a solo artist, and marked the first female rap album after fifteen years to be nominated for Album of the Year. It spawned two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100; with “Bodak Yellow”, Cardi B became the first female rapper to achieve a diamond-certified song by the RIAA and the first to top the Hot 100 with a solo output in 19 years, while “I Like It” marked the first time a female rapper attained multiple number-one songs on the chart. Her Hot 100 number-one collaboration “Girls Like You” with band Maroon 5 made her the only female rapper to achieve multiple diamond-certified songs by the RIAA. She has since released two singles from her upcoming second album— “WAP” (2020) and “Up” (2021), both of which topped the Hot 100 and other charts globally.
Recognized by Forbes as one of the most influential female rappers of all time, Cardi B holds various records among women in hip hop; she is the female rapper with the most number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, the only to achieve multiple number ones with solo songs and the only to achieve number ones in two decades (2010s and 2020s) on the chart. She is also the female rapper with the most diamond-certified songs by the RIAA, the highest-certified female rapper of all time on their Top Artists (Digital Singles) ranking, on which she is also among the ten highest-certified women, and the female rapper with the most songs with a billion streams on Spotify—where she also has the most-streamed female rap album. She was the first lead artist to top the inaugural Billboard Global 200. Her accolades include a Grammy Award, eight Billboard Music Awards, six Guinness World Records, six American Music Awards, fourteen BET Hip Hop Awards, and two ASCAP Songwriter of the Year awards. In 2018, Time magazine included her on their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2020, Billboard honored her as Woman of the Year. Outside of music, she became the creative director of entertainment magazine Playboy in 2022.
Early life
Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar was born in Washington Heights, Manhattan, on October 11, 1992 She has a Dominican father and a Trinidadian mother of African and Spanish descent. Almánzar was raised in the Highbridge neighborhood of the South Bronxand spent much time at her paternal grandmother’s home in Washington Heights, which she credits with giving her “such a thick accent.”Almánzar developed the stage name “Cardi B” as a derivation of Bacardi, a rum brand that was formerly her nickname. She has a younger sister, Hennessy Carolina, who was born in 1995. She has said she was a gang member with the Bloods in her youth, since the age of and has stated that she would not encourage joining a gang. She attended Renaissance High School for Musical Theater & Technology, a vocational high school on the Herbert H. Lehman High School campus.
During her teens, Cardi B was employed at an Amish deli in Tribeca. She was fired and became a dancer at a strip club across the street. Cardi B has said that becoming a stripper was positive for her life in many ways: “It really saved me from a lot of things. When I started stripping I went back to school.” She has stated that she became a stripper to escape poverty and domestic violence, having been in an abusive relationship at the time after being kicked out of her mother’s house, and that stripping was her only way to earn enough money to escape the situation and get an education.She attended Borough of Manhattan Community College. before eventually dropping out. While stripping, Cardi B lied to her mother by telling her she was making money by babysitting.
In 2013, she began to gain publicity due to several of her videos spreading on social media, on Vine and her Instagram page.
Career
2015–2016: Career beginnings
Cardi B being interviewed on Street Soldiers with Lisa Evers in January 2016
In 2015, Cardi B joined the cast of the VH1 reality television series Love & Hip Hop: New York, debuting in season six.Jezebel considered her the breakout star of the show’s sixth season. The New York Times wrote that she garnered popularity with “her ability to rattle off one-liners”.The sixth and seventh seasons chronicle her rise to stardom and her turbulent relationship with her incarcerated fiancé. On December 30, 2016, after two seasons, she announced that she would be leaving the show to further pursue a career in music.
In November 2015, Cardi B made her musical debut on Jamaican reggae fusion singer Shaggy’s remix to his single “Boom Boom”, alongside fellow Jamaican dancehall singer Popcaan. She made her music video debut on December 15, 2015, with the song “Cheap Ass Weave”, her rendition of British rapper Lady Leshurr’s “Queen’s Speech 4”.On March 7, 2016, Cardi B released her first full-length project, a mixtape titled Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1. In November 2016, she was featured on the digital cover of Vibe magazine’s “Viva” issue. On September 12, 2016, KSR Group released the compilation Underestimated: The Album, which is a collaboration between KSR Group artists Cardi B, HoodCelebrityy, SwiftOnDemand, Cashflow Harlem, and Josh X. It was previously released only to attendees of their U.S. tour. KSR Group’s flagship artist Cardi B said “I wanted to make a song that would make girls dance, twerk and at the same time encourage them to go get that Shmoney,” in regard to the compilation’s single “What a Girl Likes”.
She appeared on the December 9, 2015, episode of Uncommon Sense with Charlamagne.On April 6, 2016, she was on the twelfth episode of Khloé Kardashian’s Kocktails with Khloé: in this episode, she revealed how she told her mother that she was a stripper.In November 2016, it was announced that she would be joining the cast of the BET series Being Mary Jane. TVLine describes her character, Mercedes, as a “round-the-way beauty with a big weave, big boobs and a big booty to match her oversize, ratchet personality.”
In 2016, Cardi B was featured in her first endorsement deal with Romantic Depot, a large New York chain of lingerie stores that sell sexual health and wellness products. The ad campaign was featured on radio and cable TV.
