Azealia Banks criticized Cardi B, calling her a “caricature of a black woman” with an “extreme lack of couth.” Now Cardi B is firing back.
Taking to Instagram, Bardi clapped back with references to Banks’ past. “Beyoncé? Wasn’t Beyoncé the same woman she was talking shit about and dragging all over the media? I’m from the hood, I speak how I speak, I am how I am. I did not choose to be famous, people choose me! … I never asked to be a example or a role model I don’t want to change my ways because I’m famous that’s why I just mind my business. This is coming from a woman that bleached her skin but want to advocate. GOODBYE. I’m not apologizing or killing myself because of who I am.”
Banks praised Beyoncé’s LEMONADE before dissing Cardi during Friday’s interview with “The Breakfast Club.” “We were discussing our power amongst ourselves. Beyoncé came out with LEMONADE and there was a really intelligent conversation going on nationally. And then, everything just kind of changed and then it was like, Cardi B… I’m just talking about this caricature of a black woman that black women themselves would never be able to get away with. If my spelling and grammar was that bad, I’d be canceled. If Nicki Minaj spelled like that, you’d just be ragging on her all day. I don’t understand how we go from Beyoncé, LEMONADE, and Solange, Black Lives Matter, and all of these conversations to this.”
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Banks, however, was dissing Beyoncé around LEMONADE’s release. Taking to Twitter, she said Queen Bey was “capitalizing on a national convo, w/o actually having 2 participate in the conversation.” “She’s purposefully strayed away from political discourse her entire career to make sure she didn’t alienate white ppl,” she added. “And now that black women’s suffering is a national conversation, she wants to hop on it and make our suffering ‘trendy’…she needs to stay under Jay-z’s foot where she belongs, and stay out of the creative woman’s way.”
At the time, she bashed Beyoncé’s artistic merit, as well. “She’s not an artist, she’s a poacher,” Banks wrote. “She takes food out of darker skinned women’s mouths & pretends to be inspired.” She added: “Beyonce is america’s way of having a black woman without actually having to DEAL with a black woman.”
Cardi also took to Twitter to address the issue. “Why is it that male rappers can speak how they want act how they want but people constantly bash me for it ? Why do i feel like i have to apologize for being who i am ?talking how i talk and being what ya call “Ghetto ” wtff .LEAVE ME ALONE,” she wrote. “Every week it seems like I’m in somebody’s mouth .Why was nobody talking about me when i was on love and hip hop ?all of a sudden I’m the reason why the world is such a terrible place .I be minding my business i wake up and boom something about Cardi !i don’t get it…If I’m going to apologize for something is for not knowing what are the right terms to call people .You guys want me to be something that I’m not I’m not going to let you make me feel like I’m something that I’m not .Ya so quick to bash but not educate.”
Following her lengthy response to Banks, Cardi deactivated her Instagram account. But that didn’t stop Azealia from taking more shots. “You and whoever wrote this reply for you don’t have the intelligence to engage in this not-so-complex discussion,” she said. “You are a very mediocre looking light-skin woman with cold sore scars on the sides of her mouth, a coated tongue you love to wag around and horribly deep set eyes.”