The story of Cardi B is
popular artists of this generation.
She has climbed to the top of the charts, broken records and taken home awards.
She had been involved in a highly publicized marriage and the birth of daughter kulture.
She's taken the stage on television's most prestigious shows bringing them in record
breaking records and all the while she acted as an ambassador for the talent coming up
off of social media.
Not only has Cardi B given the world bangers like Bodak Yellow, Finesse and MotorSport.
She's also spawned millions of meme's and given the world plenty of catchphrases.
It was her candid and honest personality, her embracing all the realities of herself
during her come up which made her America's sweetheart over night and an artist who won't
be going anywhere anytime soon.
That's why we decided to take extra time with this updated Before They Were Famous video.
We hope you like the changes, please give us your feedback in the comments down below.
Smash that like button and Cardi B, if you happen to watch this please give your man
a shoutout.
We could use the extra love.
My name is course is Michael McCrudden – this video was sponsored by our good friends at
Kandy Pens now let's take a deeper look at Cardi B here on Before They Were Famous.
Carbi B was born Belcalis Marlenis Almanzar on October 11, 1992 in New York City.
Her father is Dominican and her mother is Trinidadian.
Her father a cab driver and her mother a cashier, the two would eventually split up during Cardi's
youth.
She gained the nickname Bacardi as a result of her sister's first name being Henessey.
She later would shorten it to Cardi B and the meaning of the B changes each day depending
on how she's feeling.
At the age of eight her family relocated from the Manhattan district of Washington Heights
to the Boogie Down Bronx and started attending 6th grade in the Bronx when she was 11, where
she was first exposed to the vulgar language of her peers.
realities of urban life.
Cardi once described a story where her and her father were driving and a man dropped
on the street in front of them.
At first, Cardi thought her father had struck and killed a pedestrian.
As it turns out, the man has been shot in the head.
This is only a portion of what Cardi B was exposed to growing up, which according to
her, eventually led her to her involvement with the Bloods during her teen years.
Before you go thinking I'm out here exposing a young Cardi B for being a gang member she
had embraced this affiliation with her track Red Barz.
She also had this to say via Twitter:
“Bitch I been a big time Blood since I was 16 so f*ck is you talking bout... ya just
never peep it.”
While tweets like this would have you think she's wearing her gang affiliation like a
badge of honor, she has stated that she wouldn't encourage anyone to join a gang.
Cardi attended Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and Technology in the Bronx
and although she has admitted that she would often skip class to go to hood parties when
she did attend school she was your typical class clown.
A natural performer Cardi B would also take the stage at her high school talent shows
and we found a clip of her performing to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance.
She also added that despite her absence from school she took an interest in history and
had studied up on events including the World Wars and the Holocaust.
Cardi held several low end jobs as a youth, including a brief stint working at an Amish
Market on the Lower East Side.
At the time, Cardi was living with a controling and abusive boyfriend in his apartment shared
with his mother, a couple of pitbulls and sleeping on a mattress littered with bedbugs.
If you think things couldn't get any worse, his sister would also steal what little money
she had and he controlled Cardi constantly threatening to throw her out on the street.
When she was fired from her job at the market after giving a customer a discount her manager
gave her some helpful advice.
Cardi told Fader magazine:
“He was like, ‘You’re so pretty, you got a nice body.'
He told me to go across the street to New York Dolls, the strip club.
That’s when I started stripping,”
Speaking on her experiences, she has said that the decision saved her life and that
she went from making $250 dollars a week to $300 on her very first shift.
Her mother however was not pleased and an intense reaction upon finding out her daughters
new gig.
Stripping sorted out Cardi's financial situation, it gave her more confidence, it gave her great
practice as a dancer and she even decided to go back to school.
She enrolled at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and took courses in history and French
before eventually deciding to drop out.
She was making tons of money dancing and eventually decided to move on to higher paying clubs
dancing for rich white men.
Around 2013, Cardi began uploading videos to both Instagram and Vine.
Her blunt sense of humour as well as honest nature quickly gained her an audience.
Initially she was just getting followers from those who attended her club and the bar staff
but it eventually spilled over into followers from all over the world.
A shoutout from Bobby Shmurda would be her first big break.
Now with a new look her online following soon climbed into the hundreds of thousands Cardi
B doubled down on worked for her and continued to be herself no matter who was watching.
As her numbers on Instagram grew new opportunities came her
way and she went from dancing in clubs to hosting club events.
She had always told herself that she wouldn't be dancing by the age of 25 and by 23 she
landed a big break that would allow her to do so.
Cardi B was cast on Love & Hip Hop: New York a minor role but quickly stole the show.
As a youth, she spent time listening to female rap icons including Missy Elliot and Lauren
Hill as well as several reggae and dance hall artists from the Caribbean.
She also enjoyed pop music from Lady Gaga and Madonna.
After gaining clout on television and social media Cardi gambled huge on her own ambitions
to become a rapper and invested all of her savings into making it happen.
In March of 2016, her first mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1 dropped and this was followed
by Vol. 2 in 2017.
She was quickly being compared to artists like Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown.
From here Cardi B's online buzz continued to snowball and audiences were eager for a
full length album... while building up anticipation the social media star was invited to sit down
on America's most popular television shows.
Cardi B signed with Atlantic Records and on June 16th 2017 that Cardi dropped Bodak Yellow
an rap anthem heard all over the world.
The track was a success of historical significance.
Not only has the video racked up 664 million views on YouTube at the time of this recording
it also made Cardi the first female hip-hop artist to have a number one single without
a feature since Lauren Hill's Doo Wop from back in 1998.
This song was also nominated for two Grammy's for best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance.
Good for her, girl deserved cause she almost got eaten by a tiger on set of the video shoot
out in Dubai.
In the fall of 2017, she had a tripple hitter with features on the Bruno Mars' Finesse remix,
G-Eazy's No Limit and Migo's MotorSport alongside future rival Nicki Minaj.
Around this time, she was also getting into a serious relationship with rapper Offset.
Cardi always had a plan to be married and have children young and things with Offset
got serious pretty quickly.
After seven month of dating the man got down on one knee in front of a stadium of thousands
of people out in Philly.
But there would be another couple shockers in store for us, it was soon revealed that
the two had already tied the knot a month prior and a marriage certificate was released
via TMZ.
We have actually made an entire video titled Before They Were Engaged on
the pair relationship.
During an appearance on Saturday Night Live, after weeks of circulating rumours, the camera
zoomed out to unveil Cardi B baby bump.
This served as an announcement to the world that she was indeed pregnant.
Returning backstage after her performance of Be Careful, she expressed her relief.
In the summer of 2018, Cardi's long awaited debut album Invasion of Privacy was released
via Atlantic Records.
With additional tracks including I Like It and Ring, the former reaching over 674 Million
views on youtube, the album proved to be one of the biggest of the year.
She set a new record for the most streamed album by a female artist in a single week
with over a hundred million streams.
In July of that Summer, Cardi gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Kulture.
But things were not all great, Cardi soon was involved in drama.
Two weeks after Kulture's birth, Offset was arrested at a traffic stop in Atlanta after
being found in possession of marijuana, $107,000 in cash and three unregistered firearms.
He was released on bond soon after.
Cardi also had her fair share of drama.
While walking the red carpet during the 2018 New York Fashion Week where Cardi spotted
Nicki Minaj and threw a shoe at her.
Back to her old tricks I see.
She actually managed to one-up Jim Carrey's controversy from the year before.
Sorry, I'm a huge Jim Carrey fan so I had to squeeze that in.
In fact Cardi B is also a massive Carrey fan.
After the release of her music video for In Loving Colour he took to Twitter to share
his praise and Cardi posted about it sharing her admiration for the comedian.
Before we get back to the shoe throwing beef between her and Nicki, well it looks like
it's getting a little smokey in here:
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So what on earth made Cardi B throw her show once again.
Well She stated that the incident stemmed from a comment Nicki made about her as a mother.
Their feud had actually been bubbling for quite sometime, with Cardi and Nicki throwing
subliminal jabs at each other since the beginning of 2017.
Controversy aside, Cardi B has solidified herself as one of the biggest entertainers
in the world.
Despite all the cards she was dealt she overcame all the odds and utilized all the opportunity
that existed on social media.
I truthfully don't know if we will ever see a come up story like this again but I think
we can all agree she is one unique talent that deserves all her success.
A funny lit bit of Behind the scenes's info for you guys.
Do you remember when Cardi B filmed this ins Toronto?
She was here in town for OVO fest in 2017.
My best friend Ben-O caught her at a Hot Dog stand.
Ben is a strange guy and Cardi was a bit stand offish when he approached her, he then mentioned
that he knew the Before They Were Famous guy and she lit up, she told him she loved the
video and they took a photo togther to send to me.
Crazy!
I know.
As for the rest of the story, well we'll have to wait and see because this is Before They
Were Famous.