A blown out proportion ‘beef’ or a behind the scenes dispute? Here’s the story…

Nicki Minaj / Cardi B

Cardi B and Nicki Minaj have never exactly been close pals, but in the past, their so-called “beef” has been blown up to epic proportions. The two rappers first began to be questioned about their apparent rivalry last year when they collaborated on Migos’ track ‘Motorsport’, and fans interpreted the two verses as a feud in rap form. They shot the rumours down, pointing out that women in music are often pitted against each other for no reason.

Nicki Minaj called the whole affair “so tired”, while Cardi B told Complex that it’s “so annoying. I feel like people wouldn’t even be satisfied even if me and [Nicki] was making out…” she added. “I feel like people just want that drama.”

So far, so civil. However, over the last year, tensions have clearly mounted. Referring to the whole thing as a ‘beef’ seems a little dramatic – the pair have collaborated together, after all, and have also been supportive of one another in the past – but it’s clear that something else is going on behind the scenes now. Yesterday, Cardi B posted a set of videos on Instagram, claiming a variety of things about Nicki Minaj.

Among other things, Cardi said that she was offered a guest spot on the Little Mix track ‘Woman Like Me’ ahead of Nicki, and also claimed that she stopped Migos’ Offset and 21 Savage from doing a video for Minaj’s ‘No Flag’. Little Mix eventually entered the debate, too, to share screenshots.. It all got very heated – not to mention confusing. Eventually, Cardi claimed she’d grown bored of the whole thing, and Nicki proposed that the two go head to head on her Queen Radio show for a discussion. Sounds reasonable, tbh.

Here’s the story as it unfolded…

Like it like that

Rumours of a brewing argument first started to circulate after Nicki Minaj liked a negative comment about Cardi B. On the since-deleted freestyle rap, posted on March 28 last year, one user replied “dumb Ass bars”. Nicki reportedly liked this comment. Uh-oh.

Take Shether

Later in the year, Nicki Minaj was involved in a separate back and forth with Remy Ma; who released the diss track ‘shETHER’. Fairly pointed, the track in question contains the lyric “Fuck Nicki Minaj”. Nicki responded by sharing the sales figures for Remy’s recent track ‘Plato O Plomo’ in a since-deleted post. So far, so standard when it comes to the tradition of diss track etiquette.

What’s this got to do with Cardi? Well, when Remy Ma performed the track in question at Summer Jam in June 2017 – complete with a giant Nicki Minaj backdrop just to hammer the point home even further – Cardi was a guest during another song called ‘U.N.I.T.Y’ elsewhere in the set.

Two months later, Nicki Minaj appeared on London On Da Track’s ‘No Flags’ with Cardi’s husband Offset and fellow Migos member 21 Savage. Fans speculated that that one verse in particular was pointed towards Cardi. “Lil bitch I heard these labels tryna make another me,” she raps, “Everything you getting, lil hoe, is cause of me.”

The cool off

Nicki quickly quietened down the speculation around ‘No Flag’. On Twitter, she said that the song was written “a cpl months ago”, and so was not any kind of ‘response’ to Cardi’s involvement in Remy Ma’s Summer Jam performance.

When Cardi was asked about her appearance on G-Eazy’s ‘No Limit’ – and lyrics which some people interpreted to be about Minaj – she similarly denied that it had anything to do with the so-called feud. And a month later, when Cardi became the second female rapper in history to score a number one without any guest spots (the track in question was ‘Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)’)  Nicki tweeted her to say congratulations.

Cardi replied: “Thank you!! This means sooo much coming from you!”

New York Fashion…. Eek!

Fast forward to September 2018, and the pair reportedly had an altercation at New York Fashion Week. Cardi B reportedly approached Nicki to confront her about “lies Nicki was spreading” before allegedly being elbowed in the head by a security guard. She later threw a shoe at Minaj, apparently, before being escorted out the room.

It is also worth bearing in mind that these reports came from the gossip site TMZ, so they’re worth taking alongside an enormous pinch of salt. The context that led to the confrontation isn’t on tape, for instance.

After the afterparty

Following the reported confrontation at New York Fashion Week, Nicki Minaj spoke about the incident on her Beats1 show Queen Radio, and claimed that her friend Rah Ali was the person who hit Cardi. “Rah beat Cardi’s ass really bad,” she said. “The punches were so hard in your head. Rah beat you so bad that I was mad at Rah. She punched her eight, nine times. Now you got your sister calling me a crackhead.”

She was referring to the fact that Cardi’s sister, Hennessy Carolina, accused her of leaking Cardi’s phone number online. “Ya asking why I’m beefing with a fan base but ya not asking why someone with so much influence would use their influence to manipulate their fans to spread so much negativity and hate,” Carolina posted on Instagram.

Nicki Minaj denied ever leaking the phone number on Queen Radio. Talking about the animosity between the pair, she added that she was “perfectly fine” with “never talking about this again.”

Merch ado about nothing?

Following the NYFW fiasco, Cardi posted on Instagram, where appeared to be speaking about Nicki Minaj. “I let you sneak diss me, I let you lie on me, I let you attempt to stop my bags, f**k up the way I eat,” she said. Minaj responded on her radio show, accusing Cardi of trying to “attack people and to stop their bags.” Stopping someone’s bag,  fyi, means getting in the way of somebody else’s income, usually by outcompeting them.

The following month, Minaj launched a new merch item; a bright pink rucksack emblazoned with the slogan ‘Nicki stopped my bag’

Apparently not!

Yesterday Cardi B took to Instagram again, sharing a series of videos directly aimed at Nicki. “You lie so much you can’t keep up with your fuckin’ lies,” Cardi said. “First you say you’ve got the footage, but then you say you wanna pay somebody $100,000 if they give you the footage? Yo, make sense when you’re talking!” The footage she’s referring to is unseen CCTV footage of the pair’s confrontation at New York Fashion Week.

Cardi B also says that the only reason 21 Savage didn’t appear on ‘Krippy Kush’ is because he had “an issue with his kid” and wasn’t able to appear on the collaboration. Minaj previously claimed that “Offset and 21 Savage didn’t do [the video for] that London On Da Track record because [Cardi] said I was talking about her,”

“Maybe I should sue you for defamation of character since you wanna claim that I’m using something called payola, because you don’t understand why I’m so fuckin’ successful,” Cardi replied on her series of Instagram posts.

The pair previously accused one another of payola: paying for radio play.

The calm after the storm?

And now what? Cardi B ended her posts towards Nicki Minaj by claiming that she’s tired of the entire saga. “I’m tired of talking about it too,” she said. “I’m tired of the fucking whole internet shit, I’m tired of the interview shit. If you really wanna talk about it, you know where to link me. … We can talk about it, or we can fight it out. I’m with whatever.”

Nicki responded on Twitter, claiming that Cardi has never written her own verse. In response to Cardi’s call for a conversation (or fight), she suggested a lie detector test, an interview on her Beats1 show, and a competition where the two of them write to the same beat.

I know this stuff is entertaining & funny to a lot of people but I won’t be discussing this nonsense anymore,” Minaj added. Cardi screenshotted the tweet, and posted it on Instagram with the comment: “Arlight then! Let’s keep it positive and keep it pushing”.

Is that the end of this complicated and often uneventful feud – which may or not have ever existed? We’ll just have to wait and see!