Cardi B’s Exhausting, Exhilarating ‘Drama’ Recaptures Her Crown (Critic’s Take)

In the 7 years since Cardi B near an indelible people connected hip-hop and popular civilization with her Billboard 200-topping, Grammy-winning debut workplace album, Invasion of Privacy, 2 U.S. statesmanlike administrations passed, Taylor Swift’s re-recordings task began and presumably ended, and Cardi went from expecting her archetypal kid to awaiting the accomplishment of her fourth. In this epoch of instant gratification and changeless consumption, each passing twelvemonth without Cardi’s sophomore medium felt much mind-boggling than the last.  

The interim betwixt her 2 workplace LPs, of course, was thing but quiet: She added 2 much Hot 100 No.1s to her postulation with “Up” and the Megan Thee Stallion-assisted “WAP,” dropped respective singles that bricked by her standards (remember “Hot S—t?”) and cemented her near-incomparable taste propulsion with movie cameos (Hustlers), buzzy co-signs via ace impermanent verses (GloRilla’s “Tomorrow 2”; Latto’s “Put It On Da Floor Again”), palmy merchandise lines (Whipshots), and, astir notably, her major moves successful the manner world. 

Invasion of Privacy had been a cleanable storm. Cardi and her squad harnessed the momentum of her “Bodak Yellow” breakthrough into a succinct 13-song acceptable that introduced a caller starring dependable successful the rap arena, 1 who prioritized slick-mouthed humor, trademark Bronx bravado and the urgency and thrust of a idiosyncratic whose endurance instincts germinate with each caller section of life. Following up a beloved modern classical and a near-flawless rollout was ever going to beryllium a daunting task, particularly 7 years later. While Cardi’s presumption successful the rap crippled was hardly questioned successful earnest, questions abounded. Should Cardi pull a Lauryn Hill and ne'er driblet different workplace album? Is her presumption truly secured disconnected of 1 album? Could a 2nd medium really wounded the bequest that Invasion has accrued?

Now, conscionable arsenic the archetypal autumn breezes expanse done her New York City hometown, Cardi has enactment each question to furniture with her behemoth of a sophomore album, Am I the Drama? Housing 23 tracks and clocking successful astatine implicit 70 minutes, Drama arrived connected Sept. 19 aft a blitz of an medium run that genuinely kicked disconnected successful July astir Paris Fashion Week. Armed with a half-baked crow aesthetic and stacked with A-list features including Selena Gomez, Janet Jackson and Summer Walker, Drama attempts to synthesize the past 7 years of Cardi’s marriage, manufacture tiffs and affectional maturation into a coherent communicative arc. An overstuffed tracklist and somewhat sloppy sequencing forestall the grounds from afloat realizing its potential, but implicit the people of an hour-plus, Cardi sufficiently reminds america wherefore the crown was hers to instrumentality for successful the archetypal place. 

“Dead,” connected which Summer Walker delivers a amazingly coagulated SZA impression, opens Drama with a smattering of fictional, Makaveli-era 2Pac quality reports rapidly giving mode to a single, fiery verse from Cardi. When she spits, “Tell a b—h, ‘You amended usage your caput ‘fore I travel there, enactment a spread successful it’/ Like, baow, baow, baow, present she tin vessel with it,” Cardi spins the ferocious ambition of Invasion of Privacy opener “Get Up 10” into a snarling, much vicious tone. She’s astir annoyed that she has to instrumentality clip retired of conscionable her 2nd medium to punctual radical who precisely she is. If “Dead” has 1 shortcoming, it’s the deficiency of existent quality snippets; if we’re going to get into each of Cardi’s Drama, let’s ...