Cardi B says the comedian questioning her success has spent years in her DMs asking how to land brand deals. That detail landed hardest in a long post on X, where the rapper answered Mona Love’s claim that light skin helped carry her to superstardom.
Love made the remarks on a recent episode of The Joe Budden Podcast, reacting to a resurfaced clip from Cardi’s 2024 Instagram Live. “Cardi is very talented, but part of the reasons why she’s there is because she’s light,” she said.
She didn’t soften it either. “Colorism does take part in a lighter person making it further,” Love added. “It’s a fact.”
Cardi’s first issue was with the clip itself. She argued the 13 second snippet stripped away the context of a conversation that originally ran about 15 minutes.
She also made clear she isn’t denying the problem exists. I know that colorism is real I never denied that I seen it for myself,” she wrote, pointing back to her years as a stripper, when she watched men treat lighter and darker skinned women differently.
Where she drew the line was the idea that complexion explains her career. “What Im always going to stand up for is that my skin tone is not solely the reason for my success,” she wrote.
To back that up, Cardi went back to her early days, when critics picked apart her teeth, her acne and her hairstyles and wrote her off as an entertainer. “My skin tone wasnt enough to convince anyone I was a star,” she wrote.
The rest of that passage is where the headline comes from. “Everybody said no!!” she continued. “I had to work my ass off to get where I am.”
She conceded that lighter skinned women may find certain doors open more easily. Staying in the room is another matter, she argued, and that comes down to “the work,” “the strategy,” “the consistency AND the talent.”
Then it got personal. Cardi said Love had reached out privately over the years for advice on surgery, personal matters and securing brand deals.
If my success is because of my light skin why you asking me how to pitch yourself and how to get brand deals??” she asked. It’s a pointed question, and one that flips the conversation from industry bias to the relationship between the two women.
Cardi also accused Love of reviving the topic on purpose, to pull attention away from the backlash over her recent comments about Tia Kemp. “You decided to use me and a sensitive topic as a scapegoat,” she wrote.
Love’s argument taps into a long running debate about who gets pushed forward in rap and entertainment, and it isn’t one Cardi is trying to shut down.
The Grammy winner, whose debut album Invasion of Privacy took home Best Rap Album, insists both things can be true at once.
I will never not acknowledge the prejudice in our system,” she wrote, adding that “we can acknowledge that reality without diminishing my accomplishments or my experience.”
With the Tia Kemp fallout still hanging over Love and Cardi now putting their private conversations on the table, the next move belongs to Love.
