(September 22, 2025) – Bardi is back! And this wouldn’t be the respected music forum that it is if I didn’t give the most anticipated hip-hop album of the decade a listen and an honest critique.
Cardi B released her sophomore album—and her first in seven years, aptly titled Am I the Drama?—on Friday (Sept. 19). Needless to say, with 21 newer tracks—plus two former No. 1 singles from the beginning of the decade thrown in to stamp its platinum certification—she pegs the ratchet meter high (not off-scale though). And let’s face it: Cardi isn’t being herself if she isn’t bragging about her elite position in the rap game, boasting about certain wet-ass body parts, or notching her how-I-fucked-em belt with Baes past and present. And, yes, there are the usual odes to looks, fashion, and wealth to boot.
But if there’s anything that differentiates Am I the Drama? from previous Cardi material—and believe me, its nearly impossible to find anything that a rapper releases these days that shows evolution—is just that: she’s evolved. Not so much in themes—she (like nearly every other female rapper out there) still wallows too much in “baddest bitch” tropes—but in context. Cardi has been through a tough marriage, had three babies (with a fourth on the way), and started a new relationship with a high profile NFL player—all since her last album, Invasion of Privacy, streeted in 2018. All get addressed here.
As a result, the Bronx rapper spends much of the album focused on the relationship just ended and the one just begun. Songs like “Man of Your Word” and “Shower Tears” are directed at the former while “Pick it Up” and “On My Back”—the unapologetic reference to Cardi’s position of choice, with enough football euphemisms to remove any doubt—are about the latter. On “Nice Guy,” she raps about both. If there’s any privacy to be invaded on this album, Cardi lays it bare for the world to pilfer.
But it’s the football references and other one-liners that keep Cardi’s status as one of the funniest rappers in the game—male, female or otherwise—fully intact. Love her or hate her, she’s still hilarious af!
It is in that spirit that DJROBBLOG offers this review of Am I the Drama?—not in the form of a long, drawn-out essay that analyzes each track, but in a ranking of the album’s funniest lines. The following is a list of the 20 wittiest lyrics on Am I the Drama? (Song titles follow in parentheses; the list excludes lyrics from earlier singles “WAP” and “Up,” although you can get our full breakdown of “WAP” here.)
Here they are:
🎤 “I told hoes to suck my dick, they put their hair up in a bun.” (“Dead”) – The biological irony and the visual of immediate compliance are what put this one over the top.
🎙️“Tell a bitch they better use their head before I come there and put a hole in it like pow! pow! pow! Now she can bowl with it.” (“Dead”) – They say if something is stupid it can’t be funny. This line is clearly both. Again, it’s the visual (not the violence) that makes it hilarious.
🎤 “It be me carrying these hoes, surprised that I’m not showing” (“Hello”) – Warning: this is not your Adele or Lionel Richie variety of “Hello,” and Cardi, who knows a thing or four about “showing,” makes that very clear.
🎙️ “Your booking fee is my makeup and hair money” (“Imaginary Playerz”) – Cardi is basically saying what other rappers make for an entire gig, she spends on makeup and hair alone. Ouch!
🎤 “My flop and your flop is not the same/ If you did my numbers, y’all would pop champagne; If I did your numbers, I would hop out a plane…” (“Imaginary Playerz”) – Cardi boldly addresses her recent flops with this extreme reaction, but maybe there’s some truth to her comparisons. Am I the Drama? is only expected to move about 125-150K units first week, about half of what Invasion of Privacy did in 2018 but still more than any other female rapper since then, aside from Nicki Minaj’s last two albums.
🎙️ “Name five BIA songs, gun pointin’ to your head. Bow, I’m dead!” (“Pretty and Petty”) – The funniest part is that she could have said “Name one BIA song” and I’d be lying on the floor lifeless. (By the way, this mention has caused Bia’s streams to go way up as of this writing.)
🎤 “Said, ‘Now take me out to eat’, TAO, Philippe/ He said, ‘Why we gotta leave? ‘Tween your thighs, a feast’” (“Principal”) – On the Janet Jackson feature that wasn’t, Cardi makes it clear you don’t have to go to a fancy restaurant to get a good meal.
🎙️ “If it’s beef, we got sticks, I could get you shish kabab’d (Woo, woo, woo)” (“Trophies”) – Another food reference, with this goofier one aimed squarely at her opposition.
🎤 “There’s skeletons in my closet too, it wasn’t all bags” (“Man of Your Word”) – Cardi is known for her love of designer bags, so this confessional about her role in a relationship’s demise is funny in its context.
🎙️ “You a shady-ass bitch, you’ve been trash since birth/ Mama didn’t want you, Brenda’s baby-ass bitch” (“Magnet”) – In a nod to Tupac’s classic “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” Cardi likens her opp to the infant that was discarded by her teenage mother in the ‘90s tale of underage pregnancy. Hmmm…maybe not so funny after all.
🎤 “I might go celibate, I know I’ll make some money” (“Outside”) – It’s the play on the word “celibate,” which sounds like “sell a bit,” and her reference to making money that works here.
🎙️ “Must got on notifications and alerts ‘Cause everything I do, a hatin’ bitch see it first” (“Killin’ You Hoes”) – Cardi’s opps claim they don’t care but are clearly obsessed and follow her every move, or so claims Cardi.
🎤 “They online, they talking crazy, nurse she escaped again (Aah)” (“Trophies”) – We don’t use the C-word anymore in discussing mental health. Still, the nurse being informed that Cardi’s opps have metaphorically escaped the ward is funny.
🎙️“Sometimes I wanna fuck you up, sometimes I wanna fuck” (“Shower Tears”) – It’s the age-old love/hate relationship between couples, expressed as only Cardi can. Carly Simon’s pop classic “Jesse” explored similar themes in 1980, but far more eloquently.
🎤 “I ain’t stayin’ here throwin’ a fit/ I’m goin’ out, let me throw on a fit/ Somethin’ tight to show off the tits/ You gon’ be tagged when I post up the pic” (“Nice Guy”) – Out with the old, in with the new…oh, and Cardi’s gonna let the old know about the new.
🎙️“I said now come run a route in this pussy, spike the ball/ End zone, touchdown in this pussy”(“On My Back”) – Pillow talk never sounded so athletic. For the record, Cardi’s New England Patriot beau Stefon Diggs thankfully did not run a touchdown route against my Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday (9/21), in a game the Steelers won 21-14.
🎤 “I mean that nigga changed me, I get up and clean his shit/ I even be cookin’ now” (“Pick it Up”) – The album’s first single, “WAP” famously declared Cardi’s aversion to cooking and cleaning for her man. The right man (Diggs?) can clearly change all of that.
🎙️“If he get knocked, come home sayin’, ‘We Muslim,’ shit, ‘Alhamdulillah’” (“Nice Guy”) – Translation: “Praise be to God.” Never has religious transformation sounded so easy. But again, it’s that right man thing.
🎤 “Lay me on my back while you be fuckin’ me (Uh)/ Chain swingin’ in my face, Jesus piece be headbuttin’ me, ow!” (“On My Back”) – Ok, now that’s too much information, Cardi.
🎙️“God, thank you for me making me the baddest bitch alive” (“Killin’ You Hoes”) – Staying on her quasi-religious theme, Cardi has much to be thankful for, and highest on the list: Being the baddest bitch, of course.
So, to the Bardi Gang out there, what were your favorite lines from Cardi’s new album? Did she slay on Am I the Drama? Or is it just the same ol’ stuff in your opinion? Feel free to comment in “Your Thoughts” below, or in any of the social media threads where this article is posted.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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