Cardi B is back with her first solo record in three years, and her new song came with a bit of shade toward her longtime rival Nicki Minaj.
Cardi, 31, kicked off her return to the rap world on Friday, March 1, releasing “Like What (Freestyle),” a song that samples Missy Elliott’s 1999 hit “She’s a Bitch.” Cardi made use of the sample in more ways than one, rapping, “First, that bitch hate me, then this bitch hate me / And somehow, they link up and they become friends, like, how?”
Fans quickly pounced on the line, presuming it was about JT of the rap duo City Girls. Cardi joined JT, 31, and Yung Miami for 2018’s “Twerk,” but the two had a public falling-out. Cardi referred to JT as Minaj’s “lap dog” in 2022, while JT told Cardi to “go fetch a real talent.”
Cardi seemingly made a more direct reference to Minaj, 41, later in the verse. “You dumb, you slow, you wildin’ / Got your first pair of Ricks [Rick Owens shoes], now you stylin’?” she raps. “Everything you got, I had five years before / I put it on the ‘Gram (haha, haha) ‘fore it even hit the store, look.”
Coincidentally, Minaj got her first solo Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song with “Super Freaky Girl” in 2022, five years after Cardi topped the charts with “Bodak Yellow.” Minaj topped the Hot 100 previously with “Say So” with Doja Cat and “Trollz” with 6ix9ine. Cardi has four Hot 100 No. 1 hits in addition to “Bodak Yellow”: “I Like It” with Bad Bunny and J Balvin, “Girls Like You” with Maroon 5, “WAP” with Megan Thee Stallion and her solo record “Up.”
“Like What (Freestyle)” also has moments of love in it. In the accompanying video, directed by Cardi’s estranged husband, Offset, she dressed in a chinchilla coat over a skimpy bikini for one scene. Fans quickly saw it as a loving homage to Lil’ Kim‘s outfit in her “Came Back for You” music video in 2003.
At the end of the “Like What” video, Cardi teased that this is “just the beginning,” giving fans hope that her long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s Invasion of Privacy will finally arrive. Cardi has been teasing her sophomore album for years. In August 2023, she told Vogue México y Latinoamérica that she would “put out my next solo single” while putting the finishing touches on the album.
“Everyone always tells me I should put the record out now,” she said, “but I always let them know I’m not going to wait long after all these singles. So stay tuned because it’s coming out very soon.”
One month later, while speaking with radio personality Ebro Darden, Cardi explained that she felt anxiety to match the success of Invasion of Privacy, and that has delayed its release. “For this album, I’m just holding it because I feel like I’m missing a couple of things,” she said. “Then on top of that, everything just has to be, like, perfect from everything because I feel like people are expecting so much.”
