US rapper Cardi B has returned with her first album in seven years, a blistering collection of songs that reference her recent divorce and ongoing beef with another female rapper.
Am I The Drama? – a title inspired by a RuPaul’s Drag Race meme – was released on Friday, and is her first full-length album since her 2018 debut Invasion of Privacy.
Rolling Stone described the rapper’s sophomore record as a “fittingly grand return for a queen who never left the throne”.
Fans welcomed the return of rap’s “queen of chaos” as they dissected the album’s bracingly honest lyrics.
The US star references her 2024 divorce from rapper Offset, formerly of hip-hop group Migos, rapping: “Last time you [messed] up, I said I was done / Messed up again, I took you back, I was dumb / Should’ve fell back from you, instead, I gave you a son.“
She also raps about his apparent infidelity, commenting that she “could’ve cheated too”.
But she also reflects on her own role in their break-up, telling him: “As a wife I should have realised when you were hurt / But instead I put my music first.“
Elsewhere, Cardi B escalates her ongoing beef with fellow rapper Bia, saying her rival’s “melatonin flow [is] putting us to bed”.
She also challenges listeners to “name five Bia songs, gun pointing to your head”, adding that Bia’s record label should be thankful for the publicity from the fallout, rapping: “I’m doing you a favour, Epic.“
In a 4.5-star reivew, Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield noted: “She’s got a long list of scores to settle, enemies to crush, crowns to claim.
“She’s out to remind everyone she’s looser, wilder, less predictable, just plain funnier than anyone else in the game.”
The Times’ Will Hodgkinson said the album “drills down into the things about her that made such an impact in the first place: a campy persona, aggressive and/or outrageously explicit raps about how great she is and how terrible everyone else is, and a sense of humour underpinning it all”.
But, he added in his three-star review: “At 23 tracks, it is far too long… and there are only so many times you can hear playground taunts set against drill and trap beats.”
Cardi B shot to fame in 2015 after appearing on the VH1 reality show Love & Hip Hop: New York.
Having already gained prominence on social media, she went on to release mixtapes and guest on other rappers’ hits before releasing her own debut album.
Robin Murray of Clash awarded her second album 7/10, writing: “Turning the focus back to music, Am I The Drama? attempts to pin down the chaos of her life, and – in the most part – succeeds.
“This is a record that feels like an exhalation, a long-awaited memoir that refuses to blot out the truth. [It] doesn’t flinch from the explicit, and embraces discomfort.”
Awarding four stars, the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis wrote: Throughout it all, Cardi B offers sharp, impressively witty lyrics delivered with brutal vigour: she never sounds like someone going through the motions, or doing what’s expected of her.
But he also took issue with the album’s length. “At 70 minutes, Am I the Drama? cleaves to an era when rappers felt impelled to pack CDs to the limit of their capacity,” he said. “It’s a questionable choice, particularly given a couple of duds.”
Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, has remained in the headlines in the years since her first album.
Earlier this month, she was cleared of assault by a Los Angeles jury after a security guard sued her for $24m (£18m).
Emani Ellis had alleged that the US rapper cut her cheek with a 3in (7.5cm) fingernail and spat on her outside an obstetrician’s office in 2018.
Cardi B has had three babies since the release of her debut album and has just announced she is pregnant with her fourth.
Her new album will be seen as a strong statement that she has returned to reclaim her throne.
And, as Petridis concluded in his review, the album “serves ample notice that getting on the wrong side of Cardi B is a course of action best avoided”.
