Nicki Minaj Addresses Cardi B Feud: ‘I Felt Ambushed’
Rumors of a feud between Nicki Minaj and Cardi B have persisted since the two emcees collaborated on "MotorSport" in the fall of 2017, but despite the pair's insistence that there's no beef to speak of, it looks like there may be some underlying tension between the two rappers after all.
Speaking to Zane Lowe on Beats 1 Thursday (April 12), Minaj got candid about her relationship with the Invasion of Privacy star, explaining that she felt let down by both Cardi and Migos, who also feature on "MotorSport," after they failed to back her up when she was "slaughtered" by the press during the song's promotional cycle.
Originally a collaboration between just Minaj and Quavo, Minaj revealed that Quavo initially texted her asking if Cardi could join on the track. Minaj, who still has the text message, said she agreed to the addition, but was "really, really hurt" by how the "Bodak Yellow" artist handled her first interview about the track.
“With ‘MotorSport,’ I kinda felt ambushed,” she explained. “The first thing that came out of [Cardi's] mouth about a Nicki Minaj feature was ‘oh, she changed the verse’ … When it was time to clear the air about that, no one did that. All of them allowed me to look like I lied.”
The press also speculated that the rapper didn't show up to the shoot for the "MotorSport" music video because of Cardi, something neither Cardi nor Migos set the record straight on, even though they knew she had only filmed on a separate day due to a scheduling conflict with her hair stylist, who Cardi also uses.
“I said to [my hair stylist], ‘You know if I don’t show up, they’re gonna think it’s because I’m doing it to be mean’ … [Migos and Cardi] all knew that and still did interviews and jumped around it just to paint Nicki as the bad person so [they] could play the victim. That really, really hurt me because I really, fully supported her," she shared, getting teary-eyed.
The "Chung-Li" rapper added that up until recently, she hadn't felt that Cardi had shown her "genuine love" in an interview.
"I could just imagine how many girls wish they could have been on a song with Nicki Minaj," she explained. "I’m not saying in it a cocky way, but...it’s because of the Nicki hate train that she felt the comfortability to address me in that manner.”
Even though she was hurt, however, Minaj shared that she's proud to see how "full steam ahead" Cardi has been in her career, congratulating the other rapper on air.