Cardi B

# Info

**elcalis Marlenis Almánzar Cephus** (/ˈbɛlkəliːz ɑːlˈmænzɑːr/, Spanish: [alˈmansaɾ]; born October 11, 1992), known professionally as **Cardi B**, is an American rapper and songwriter. She first gained popularity as an influencer on Vine and Instagram. From 2015 to early 2017, she appeared as a regular cast member on the VH1 reality television series *Love & Hip Hop: New York*, which depicted her pursuit of her music aspirations, and earned further recognition with the release of her two mixtapes: *Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1* (2016) and *Vol. 2* (2017).

Cardi B's first studio album, *Invasion of Privacy* (2018), debuted at number one on the U.S. *Billboard* 200 With the album receiving critical acclaim, it made her the first and only woman to win the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album as a solo artist, and marked the second female rap album nominated for Album of the Year. It spawned two number-one singles on the U.S. *Billboard* Hot 100 the lead single, "Bodak Yellow" made her become the second female rapper to top the Hot 100 with a solo song and the first to achieve a diamond-certified song by the RIAA. The fourth single, "I Like It", marked the first time a female rapper attained multiple number-one songs on the Hot 100. Her third Hot 100 number-one was her feature on "Girls Like You" with band Maroon 5. It made her the only female rapper to achieve multiple diamond-certified songs by the RIAA.

She has since released three singles from her upcoming second studio album — "WAP" (2020), "Up" (2021), and "Hot Shit" (2022), with the first two topping the Hot 100 and other charts worldwide. She holds various records among female rappers as she has the most number-one singles (five) on the *Billboard* Hot 100 and was the first and only female rapper to have multiple solo number ones. Additionally, she has the most songs with a billion streams on Spotify for a female rapper.

Her accolades include a Grammy Award, eight *Billboard* Music Awards, six Guinness World Records, six American Music Awards, 14 BET Hip Hop Awards, and two ASCAP Songwriter of the Year awards. In 2018, *Time* magazine included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2020, *Billboard* honored her as Woman of the Year. Outside of music, she became the creative director of entertainment magazine *Playboy* in 2022.

## Origins

elcalis Marlenis Almánzar was born in Washington Heights, Manhattan, on October 11, 1992. She has a Dominican father and a Trinidadian mother of African and Spanish descent. Almánzar was raised in the Highbridge neighborhood of the South Bronx, and spent much time at her paternal grandmother's home in Washington Heights, which she credits with giving her "such a thick accent." Almánzar developed the stage name "Cardi B" as a derivation of Bacardi, a rum brand that was formerly her nickname. She has a younger sister, Hennessy Carolina, who was born in 1995. She has said she was a gang member with the Bloods in her youth, since age 16, but stated she would not encourage joining a gang. She attended Renaissance High School for Musical Theater & Technology, a vocational high school on the Herbert H. Lehman High School campus.

During her teens, Cardi B was employed at an Amish deli in Tribeca. She was fired and became a dancer at a strip club across the street. Cardi B has said that becoming a stripper was positive for her life in many ways: "It really saved me from a lot of things. When I started stripping I went back to school." She stated that she became a stripper to escape poverty and domestic violence, having been in an abusive relationship at the time after being kicked out of her mother's house, and that stripping was her only way to earn enough money to escape the situation and get an education. She attended Borough of Manhattan Community College before eventually dropping out. While stripping, Cardi B lied to her mother by telling her she was making money by babysitting.

In 2013, she began to gain publicity due to several of her videos spreading on social media, on Vine and her Instagram page.

## Music Time

In 2015, Cardi B joined the cast of the VH1 reality television series *Love & Hip Hop: New York*, debuting in season six. *Jezebel* considered her the breakout star of the show's sixth season. *The New York Times* wrote that she garnered popularity with "her ability to rattle off one-liners". The sixth and seventh seasons chronicle her rise to stardom and her turbulent relationship with her incarcerated fiancé. On December 30, 2016, after two seasons, she announced that she would be leaving the show to further pursue a career in music

## Trivia

* The only reason she is evil because she robbed men
* Her Music is trash af