Cardi B Is Fed Up With Not Getting Paid What She Deserves When She’s “a Whole Artist”

Cardi B revealed that she has been researching more about her worth and how much she’s being paid in a recent interview with hip-hop magazine XXL, released this month.

XXL asked the “Up” rapper if she knew why she wasn’t being paid what she deserved—and also wondered if the pay disparity was related to her gender or her lack of attention. Cardi’s response included that she may have been a victim of racial profiling and the racial wage gap.

“It comes from the people that’s handling your deals. It also comes because you gotta do more research on shit,” Cardi said in the interview.

For example, sometimes I feel like a company might see, you know, a girl like me, a colored girl like me. I’m a colored girl and I’m from the ‘hood and shit. And they might be like, ‘Oh, we could offer her a $2 million advance.’ And the company is gonna make out of you, probably fucking $50 million, $100 million.

Cardi made it clear that she will be getting everything that she deserves for her work and grind. Payscale’s 2020 Racial Wage Gap Data Chart shows the unequal differences that artists like the Bronx native face in comparison to their white counterparts. In fact, Black women are at the highest disadvantage when it comes to pay, compared to white men.

“I hate making everything about race because race do exist,” she said. “Race is real. But I hate when sometimes people just want to make everything about race. It’s just like, sometimes you do see that race really matters and shit because I’ve been seeing some influencers, that are not, you know, like me. Caucasian influencers. And they’re getting paid big money.”

I’m a whole artist, she added.

The 28-year-old said she finds comfort in her husband, Offset, for business support, since he “just wants to see her win.”

“And then, my husband, he’s really fucking smart with numbers. I don’t pay him. I don’t pay him nothing,” Cardi said. “So, it’s just like, when he’s super direct and when he tells me the truth and when he be like, ‘You deserve this. You need this. You need that,’ it’s just like, he’s not telling me this because he’s gonna benefit something from it. There’s nothing to benefit. He just want to see me win. So, it’s just like, ‘You’re right.’”

For someone like Cardi B, who is a chart-topping artist releasing hit after hit, she absolutely deserves to be paid her worth, and we can’t wait to see her get her due. Hopefully, her transparency will help other artists and women of color understand that they deserve to be paid for their work and continue the fight for equality.