Cardi B is back.
After topping the charts with her record-breaking hit “WAP” featuring Megan Thee Stallion, the Bronx bombshell delivers the highly-anticipated follow-up, “Up.”
“Big bag bussin’ out the Bentley Bentayga / Man, Balenciaga Bardi back and all these bitches fu**ed,” raps Cardi before delivering the catchy hook: “If it’s up, then it’s up, then it’s up, then it’s stuck.”
During a livestream before the video’s premiere, Cardi revealed the inspiration behind her new single. “I wanted a more hood song. I feel like my last song [‘WAP’] was too sexy,” she told fans. “I wanted to do something more gangsta, more cocky.”
Along with the song, she has debuted an epic music video, which she started rehearsing for around Christmas. The clip, directed by Tanu Muino, opens with Cardi standing on top of a grave that says “RIP 2020” before busting out some fierce moves alongside her dancers. She serves up several stunning looks including a black leather dominatrix and a Bentley hood ornament draped in white. Bardi makes out with her fellow sea vixens in a clamshell and sips champagne while rocking clear plastic.
“Up” arrives ahead of Cardi’s sophomore album, the follow-up to 2018’s Invasion of Privacy, which she says will feature more personal moments.
“My music is always going to make a woman feel like a bad bitch. When you make a woman feel like she’s the baddest bitch in the room, to me, that’s female empowerment,” she told ELLE. “But this album is going to be really different. Of course, it’s going to have my Lemonade moments, my personal relationship moments.”
Cardi is also set to return to the big screen. She landed her first starring movie in the upcoming Paramount comedy Assisted Living.