Cardi B (real name Belkalis Marlenis Almanzar) is a popular rapper, songwriter, and Internet celebrity, winner of numerous music awards (including nine BET Hip Hop Awards and three MTV Video Music Awards at the beginning of 2019) and two Guinness records for the highest number songs by a female performer, included in the “Hot 100” and for a record number of R&B and hip-hop songs, entered the Top 10 of the Billboard US charts.
Childhood and youth
The future star was born on October 11, 1992, in the Bronx borough of New York City. The mother is of Trinidadian roots, and the father is Dominican. She was brought up by her grandmother in Washington Heights (Manhattan), which is why the singer has a strong accent. As a teenager, Cardi B worked in a grocery store. She could not cope with the work, which is why she was fired, and her manager invited her to apply for a job as a stripper at a strip club across the street. Cardi B just went to work as a stripper in a nightclub. According to the singer, her work as a stripper has had a positive impact on her life in many ways: “It saved me from a lot of things. When I started to undress, I went to school again”. She stated that she became a stripper to escape poverty, because then she was kicked out of the house by her mother, and that job was her only way to collect enough money to avoid the situation and get an education. She attended Manhattan City College before dropping out. While working as a stripper, Cardi B lied to her mother, telling her that she earned money by babysitting.
Music Career
Her pseudonym Cardi B is a play of letters from the word Bacardi.
In 2013, she started gaining popularity because of the videos she shared on social media.
From 2015 to 2017 she was a participant in the reality show “Love & Hip Hop: New York” and was already fond of music. The show judge Jezebel considered her the main star of the show’s sixth season. After filming was completed, she released two mixtapes – Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
On February 25, 2017, she opened for the East Coast hip-hop band The Lox’s Filthy America. In 2017, she released her debut single “Bodak Yellow”, which peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, making Cardi B the first rap artist in almost 20 years to top the chart with a solo track and only fifth at # 1 in the Hot 100. Cardi B also became the first person of Dominican descent in history to top the Hot 100 ever since its 1958 launch. To maintain its popularity, Spanish-language versions and remixes of the song were released together with the rapper Kodak Black.
In January 2018, the singer became the third performer in history after the British band The Beatles and the American soul singer Ashanti, who managed to be in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 for their first three hits at the same time: No. 4 (“No Limit”), No. 7 ( “MotorSport”) and No. 10 (“Bodak Yellow”). The Beatles were the first to set such a record achievement on the wave of Beatlemania, when on the Hot 100 on February 29, March 7, and 14, 1964, their first three hits were in the top 10 together. Only 38 years later, the music record was repeated by the singer Ashanti, when on March 30 and April 6, 2002, her first three hits were simultaneously in the American top-10 (“Foolish”, Fat Joe “What’s Luv?” And Ja Rule’s “Always on Time” ).
On April 6, 2018, the debut studio album “Invasion of Privacy” was released. The album received a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album and was nominated for Album of the Year.
On July 7, 2018, the American hit parade topped the hit “I Like It” presented by Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin. This is the singer’s second chart-topper, which has become a record for women performing rap music.
On August 21, 2018, at the MTV Video Music Awards, Cardi B received 12 nominations and won the Best New Artist and Best Summer Song categories for the song “I Like It”.
In 2018, visitors to the site mentioned Cardi B’s name 12.7 million times in their searches.
In late 2018 and early 2019, Cardi B has been named “the current hip-hop queen” in multiple publications including The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. She received five nominations at the 61st Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Rap Album, and Record of the Year (I Like It). The hip-hop artist became the third rap singer in history to receive an Album of the Year nomination for her album, following Lauryn Hill (1999) and Missy Elliott (2004). Time magazine included the singer in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world (Time 100) at the end of 2018.
Cardi B was in the lead in the number of nominations (21) at the Billboard Music Awards on May 1, 2019, which became a record in one year for singers and the third result overall (more only rapper Drake and The Chainsmokers, 22 per year).
As a result, she received six awards, and in total for her entire career there were seven victories – this is the best result for a rap singer in history.
