Cardi B: “Bodak Yellow"

Here I am, another white man writing about Cardi B.

Said, Lil bitch, you can’t fuck with me if you wanted to.
These expensive, these is red bottoms, these is bloody shoes.
Hit the store, I can get ‘em both, I don’t wanna choose.

My husband gets really excited when he hears this song, and he starts stringing together obscenities. It’s an aural and visual feast. It makes sense to me that “Bodak Yellow” would oust Taylor Swift from the top of the charts, because it is many things that Taylor Swift is not: blunt, un-calculated, vulgar. You think of “nature, red in tooth and claw.” The soles of the speaker’s Louboutins evoke thoughts of “blood”; the soles also lead to more soles; unsatisfied with just one pair of “bloody shoes,” Cardi B runs out and buys an additional pair, this time “YSL.” (“I can get ‘em both, I don’t wanna choose.”)

I don’t dance now, I make money moves.
Say I don’t gotta dance, I make money move.
If I see you and I don’t speak, that means I don’t fuck with you.
I’m a boss, you a worker, bitch; I make bloody moves.

Have we met many characters like this before? The speaker blithely alludes to her own past as a stripper, then confirms she has moved on. (“I make money moves.” “Money” is an adjective here, meaning “high stakes.” Then, in the next line, a twist happens. “I make money move.” The very appearance of Cardi B causes bank accounts to overflow; she has magical, telekinetic powers, like Roald Dahl’s Matilda.) At the end of the chorus, the idea of “moves” appears for a third time. Here, the moves are “bloody.” Blood is connected with money; this speaker goes for the jugular and, in doing so, earns cash, night after night.

I might just feel on your babe, my pussy feel like a lake.
He wanna swim with his face, I’m like, “Okay.”
I’ll let him get what he want, he buy me Yves Saint Laurent.
And the new whip, when I go fast as a horse, I got the trunk in the front.
I’m the hottest in the street, you know you prolly heard of me.
Got a bag and fixed my teeth, hope you hoes know it ain’t cheap.

The proudly amoral speaker will “feel on your babe.” The truth-telling continues: stardom, in this case, entails having a “pussy” like “a lake.” There’s a transaction: Sex leads to more Yves Saint Laurent and, apparently, to a new Ferrari. Sex and consumerism get twisted up together; when the speaker refers to her “trunk in the front,” she may be alluding to her sports car, or to her sexual organs, or to both. The speaker continues to spell out precisely what it means to acquire power: It means getting a “bag” and “fixing” your teeth. The unapologetic rudeness is exhilarating; the song makes you feel like most music you hear is hemming, hawing, and skirting around life’s big, ugly realities.

I used to live in the P’s, now it’s a crib with a gate.
Rollie got charms, look like Frosted Flakes.
Had to let these bitches know, just in case these hoes forgot:
I just run and check the mail, another check from Mona Scott.

Cardi B’s artful use of local color reminds me of Junot Diaz. “The Projects” become “the P’s.” The speaker admires the glitter on her “Rollie,” her Rolex, and the sparkly bits remind her of the sugar on Frosted Flakes. (With smart details, you’re let in on a person’s inner life. Cards B’s uses of metaphor and concrete facts make me think of another gifted young writer, who once alluded to “jet planes, islands, diamonds on your timepiece.”) We get a homonym with “check,” in the double sense of “seeing the mail” and “cashing a check.” Plus: “Mona Scott” as metonymy for Cardi B’s business trajectory. The speaker seems so casual and breezily foul, but her rich sentences help us to step into a fully-realized world, one we may not have visited before.

Thank you for bearing with me. This writer is an inspiration. I look forward to more!

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