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Black Sounds Beautiful: Why Rapper, Provocateur & GRAMMY Winner Cardi B Is A Beacon Of Black Excellence
Are gore-soaked nude armies or undulating on an onstage bed with Megan Thee Stallion everyone's cup of tea? Depending on your personal sensibilities or capacity for offense, your mileage may certainly—and understandably—vary with Cardi B.
Regardless, you can't say the South Bronx rapper's bit isn't working on a grand scale—nor that she can't back up the 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year spectacle with rap-game legitimacy, bountiful technical skill and boundless fathoms of strip-club charisma.
Cardi B inspires horror in politicians, pundits and even fellow musicians (like Cee-Lo Green) while racking up more than 100 million Instagram followers for her trouble. She seems to burn the Billboard Hot 100 to a crisp every time she releases music. The prurient "WAP" short-circuited the Internet like a salad fork in a power outlet.
With unflinching sex-and-violence material and a litany of public feuds, she's scandalized straight America to an Elvis Presley degree while rapidly gaining global momentum to a… well, Elvis degree.
Read More: Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion Give Electric "WAP" Performance | 2021 GRAMMY Awards Show
That said, if that soft-spoken Southern boy—even the version of him that terrorized Ed Sullivan with his hips—ran into Cardi, he'd flee for his life. This is a 21st-century provocateur we're dealing with.
One GRAMMY win and eight GRAMMY nominations into her career, the 28-year-old more than has the accolades to show for it, as the newest episode of Black Sounds Beautiful demonstrates.
In this video series, which illuminates the accomplishments of Black music creators through a GRAMMY lens—she has Dominican ancestry via her dad's side, too, which means we celebrate her during Hispanic Heritage Month, too—take a quick ride through Cardi B's astonishing career highlights.
In the meantime, try to predict what the next 10 years of life under Queen Cardi's reign will be like. Chances are it won't involve bridge games and quietly building birdhouses. (Which is a free idea for her next video, BTW.)
Check out the dynamic video above and explore below to enjoy more episodes of Black Sounds Beautiful.
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