We have written the biography of Cardi B, who had a very difficult childhood and youth, who made her name known quickly with the social media videos she shared and had her name written in golden letters in the sector with acting and singing.
Her real name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, she was born on October 11, 1992 in Manhattan, New York City. She was born to a Dominican father and a Trinidadian mother of African and Hispanic descent. Growing up in the South Bronx's Highbridge neighborhood, Almánzar developed the stage name "Cardi B" from Bacardi, a liquor brand that was previously nicknamed. Cardi B has a younger sister named Hennessy Carolina.
Saying that she was fired while working at a delicatessen in Tribeca as a teenager, Cardi B started out as a dancer at a strip club across the street. Cardi B, who told her mother that she earned money by babysitting, was kicked out of the house by her mother, who learned the truth. Later, she continued to do striptease to escape poverty and domestic violence as she was in a bad relationship with her mother.
Cardi B started to gain recognition in 2013 because of several of her videos that went viral on social media. In 2015, she began appearing in the cast of the VH1 reality television series "Love & Hip Hop: New York", which debuted in its sixth season. Cardi B was seen as the debuting star of the series' sixth season. Seasons six and seven of the show chronicled her rise to stardom and her turbulent relationship with her imprisoned fiancée. On December 30, 2016, she announced that she would be leaving the show to pursue her music career.
In November 2015, Cardi B made her musical debut with dance hall singer Popcaan in a remix of singer Shaggy's song "Boom Boom". She made her music video debut with rapper Lady Leshurr's song "Cheap Ass Weave" in December 2015. She appeared with Charlamagne on the December 9, 2015 episode of the talk show show "Uncommon Sense".
In 2016, Cardi B signed her first deal with "Romantic Depot," a major New York chain of lingerie stores selling sexual health and wellness products. The brand's advertising campaign was broadcast on radio and cable TV. On March 7, 2016, Cardi B released the mixtape of her project "Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol.1". In the same year, she posed for the digital cover of the "Viva" issue of Vibe magazine. On April 6, 2016, Khloé Kardashian " she appeared with Khloé in the twelfth episode of the talk show "Kocktails with Khloé".
On September 12, 2016, a collaborative compilation "Underestimated: The Album" was released. In this review, Cardi B featured alongside HoodCelebrityy, SwiftOnDemand, Cashflow Harlem, and Josh X. In November 2016, it was announced that she would be joining the cast of season 4 of the BET drama TV series "Being Mary Jane".
On January 20, 2017, Cardi B released her second mixtape, "Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol.2". The following month, she partnered with MAC Cosmetics brand and Rio Uribe's Gypsy Sport for an event for New York Fashion Week. Later in the month, she signed her first major label recording deal with Atlantic Records. Cardi made a guest appearance in the celebrity panel competition show "Hip Hop Squares", which took place on March 13 and April 3, 2017.
In May 2017, she received nominations for Best New Artist and Best Female Hip-Hop Artist at the 2017 BET Awards. On June 11, 2017, Hot 97's annual Summer Jam music festival took the stage. She also appeared on the July/August 2017 cover of Cardi B's Summer Music issue of The Fader magazine.
Later, Cardi B's commercial debut song "Bodak Yellow" was released via digital distribution. The single topped the charts for several months and reached number one on September 25, 2017. Cardi B became the first female rapper to do so with a solo song. In addition, the single managed to stay at the top of the charts for three consecutive weeks.
Cardi B continued to make a name for herself as the first person of Dominican descent to reach number one in the history of the "Hot 100" chart since its launch in 1958. An editor of The New York Times magazine called the song "the rap anthem of the summer" and was voted the "best song of 2017" by music critics. Eventually, it earned Diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and received nominations for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song at the 60th Grammy Awards. That same year, she won the Single of the Year Award at the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards.
With the collaborations "No Limit" and "MotorSport", which she later took part in, she also achieved success as the first female rapper to make her first three entries in the top 10 and the first female artist to achieve the same success in Hot R&B/. In December, she released "La Modelo", a collaboration with Puerto Rican singer Ozuna, and "Bartier Cardi", the second song from her debut album.
On January 3, 2018, Cardi B appeared in a remix version of "Finesse" by singer Bruno Mars and a '90s-inspired video. The song managed to enter the top three in the Canadian and New Zealand charts. Thus, on January 18, 2018, Cardi B became the first woman to have five top 10 songs simultaneously on the charts. She released another song called "Be Careful" on March 30, 2018, a week before the release of her album.
On April 6, 2018, her debut studio album "Invasion of Privacy" was released. The album received universal acclaim from music critics. It was described by magazine editors as "one of the strongest hits of this millennium" and "a hip-hop album that sounds like none of its earthly counterparts". While the album debuted at number one on the charts and in some countries, she became the first female artist to have 13 simultaneous entries in the chart issue dated April 21. Additionally, it managed to become the most streamed album by a female artist in one week on Apple Music, and the largest streaming-on-demand week ever for a female album. Cardi held this record until 2019.
A few months later, in July 2018, the album's fourth song "I Like It", featuring vocals by Bad Bunny and J Balvin, was also released and reached number one. Thus, she became number two on the chart, making her the first female rapper to top the charts more than once. It was critically acclaimed by Rolling Stone magazine for being named the "best summer song of all time" in 2020. That same year, her song "Girls Like You", which she collaborated with with Maroon 5, also reached number one on the Hot 100 chart. This widened her record among female rappers, making her the sixth female artist to achieve three number one songs on the chart. The music video for the song also managed to become the fifth best-selling song of the year worldwide, with more than 3 billion views on YouTube.
Cardi B also achieved success as the first female rapper to take her place at number one, beating her own song at the top of the Billboard Radio Songs chart. The song topped the charts for seven weeks, making Cardi the female rapper with the toughest weeks on the chart with eleven weeks. With thirteen tracks on the album, she also added to her success by becoming the first female artist to receive gold or higher certification for all songs on an album.
Cardi B received the most nominations at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards, with 12 mentions. Her song "Money", which won Cardi her fourth Video Music Award, featured images featuring characters she portrayed in different locations, including an art museum, a bank, and a strip club. Later, her collaboration with DJ Snake on the song "Taki Taki" topped the charts in many Hispanic countries. In addition to this success, she made Cardi B the first female rapper to top the Spotify Global 50 chart. She was named "Star of the Year" by People en Español magazine.
On November 30, 2018, Cardi B was honored by Ebony magazine at its annual "Power 100 Gala". It also became the most-streamed album of the year by a worldwide female artist on Apple Music, and was declared the most-streamed female artist of the year on Spotify. Editors named her song "I Like It" the best song of 2018, while magazines named my album "Invasion of Privacy" the best album of the year. Also in 2018, she was included in the annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. NME brand wrote in its decade-old review article that Cardi had secured her "crown as the new Queen of Rap" of the era.
Cardi B earned five nominations at the 61st Grammy Awards. On February 10, 2019, wearing the Thierry Mugler couture look while performing at the awards ceremony, Cardi B became the first female rapper to win a Best Rap Album as a solo artist. That same year, she led the 2019 Billboard Music Awards nominations with 21 nominations. This was a huge success as the most nominations ever by a woman in a single year and the third most in a year. She has won six awards, including the Top Hot 100 Song, making her the most female rapper in history, bringing her career total to seven. An article by the Omaha World-Herald newspaper also mentioned Cardi as "the world's greatest rapper".
On February 15, 2019, Cardi B released the song "Please Me" in collaboration with Bruno Mars. The single became the seventh song to hit the top ten on the Hot 100 chart and reached number three. Cardi also became the first female artist to enter the top three on the Billboard Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop broadcast list with her songs "Backin' It Up", "Twerk" and "Money". On May 31, 2019, she released her next song "Press" and it was her directorial debut. Cardi, who made her debut at the 2019 BET Awards, was the most nominated with seven nominations here. At the same time, she won the Album of the Year Award at the ceremony.
Cardi B made her film debut in the crime comedy-drama film "Hustlers" (2019), directed by Lorene Scafaria, with Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu and Lili Reinhart. Cardi B, Chance the Rapper, and T.I. was announced as the jury for the Netflix series "Rhythm + Flow", a ten-episode hip-hop talent search.
In December 2019, she embarked on her first African tour, performing in Nigeria and Ghana. Her song "Clout" earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Performance and became the most streamed female rapper of 2019 in the US, according to Spotify. The Netflix company has announced that the show "Rhythm + Flow" will return in 2021.
Cardi B released the song "WAP", a duet with American rapper Megan Thee Stallion, on August 7, 2020, as the title track of her upcoming second studio album. The song received critical acclaim and acclaim for its sex-positive messages. The music video for the song was directed by Colin Tilley, and the video broke the record for the biggest 24-hour debut for an all-female collaboration on YouTube. The song debuted at number one, making Cardi B the fourth chart-topping song in the US, furthering the record for the most number-one female rappers. She also became the first female rapper to achieve a Hot 100 number-one single in twenty different decades. The song also spent several weeks at number one in seven countries.
Cardi B won the Billboard Music Award for Best Rap Female Artist for the third time at the 2020 ceremony. In the same year, she added to her success as the first female rapper to be named Woman of the Year at the Billboard Women in Music Awards. With a win for her last song at the American Music Awards, she made her mark as the first artist to win the American Music Award multiple times for Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Song, following her 2018 win for "Bodak Yellow".
On February 5, 2021, Cardi B released "Up", the second song from her new studio album. The song received critical acclaim and debuted at number two on the charts. The single also debuted at number one on the Rolling Stone Top 100, becoming both Cardi B's second number-one song and her second number-one single. Thus, she became the first female rapper to top the chart with a solo song. With the song, Cardi B became the number one song on the Hot 100, breaking the record for female rapper. Cardi has been nominated twice for the BET Video of the Year Award for her "Up" and "WAP" videos, and took the second. She also became the first female rapper to win Video of the Year as a lead artist.
She also appeared in the action movie "F9" released by Universal Pictures on June 25, 2021. On July 16, 2021, Cardi B featured in her duet song "Wild Side" with Normani. Subsequently, Cardi collaborated on the song "Rumors", in which she did a duet with Lizzo. The song debuted at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Cardi B's tenth top 10 song on the chart.
In September 2022, Cardi B worked with rapper GloRilla on the official remix of her song "Tomorrow" called "Tomorrow 2". This remix peaked at number 9 on the charts and became Cardi's eleventh top 10 song on the chart.
Personal life
From the beginning of 2017, Cardi B started a relationship with rapper Offset. The couple got engaged on October 27, 2017. On April 7, 2018, Cardi announced her pregnancy. Later, it was revealed that they secretly got married in September 2017. The couple's daughter was born on July 10, 2018. The couple announced their separation in December 2018, but later decided to reconcile. The couple was announced to be pregnant with a second child, a boy, in June 2021, and their second child was born on September 4, 2021.
A practicing Catholic, Cardi B identifies as bisexual. Drawing attention with the costumes she wore in her music videos and stage performances, Cardi B appeared on many magazine covers and editorials. She's also been referred to as a "fashion icon" by most magazines.