CULTURE

Cardi B and Nicki Minaj Have Finally Squashed Their Months-Long Feud

The rappers finally squashed their beef after another wild flare-up Monday.


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Photograph by Mickalene Thomas; Styled by Kollin Carter. Hair by Tokyo Stylez at Chris Aaron Management; Makeup by Erika La’ Pearl for Marc Jacobs Beauty at GKG Management; Manicures by Jenny Bui at the Teknique Agency. Set design by Nicholas Des Jardins at Streeters. Produced by Blayke Kogan at Rosco Production; Production Coordinator: May Lin Le Goff at Rosco Production; Choreography: Racquel Chevremont; Photography Assistants: Athena Torri, Guillermo Cano; Digital Technician: Nick Bean; Retouching by DTouch NYC; Production Assistants: Benjamin Merker, Daniel Hanson, Ewelina Nietupska, Eric Soucy, Laszlo Meresz; Set Design Assistants: Gautum Sahi, Eddie Ballard; Fashion Assistants: Vincent Smith, Sara Taffel, Justin Tyree Clark, Kendall Cordes; Tailors: Lucy Falk and Alexander Koutny at Christy Rilling Studio.

For the past several months, two households, both alike in dignity, in fair New York City, where we lay our scene, have from ancient grudge broken to new mutiny. But late Monday evening, star-crossed rappers Cardi B and Nicki Minaj finally washed their civil hands of that seemingly never-ending feud. The truce was called after a flare-up that began when Minaj spoke once again on an episode of her Queen Radio program about that infamous New York Fashion Week fight. In the episode, Minaj claimed that her friend Rah Ali was the one who physically fought with Cardi, rather than any security guards at the NYFW party, and to such an extent that Minaj was furious with Ali for the severity of Cardi’s resulting injuries. After stirring the pot a bit, however, Minaj added, “We can just be happy. There’s nothing that really makes me not like you like that, you know what I’m saying?”

In response, Cardi uploaded a 10-post, 11-video series to Instagram in which, point by point, she fires back at Nicki’s latest comments. Highlights include: Cardi begging Minaj to “make sense when you talkin’,” fact-checking the Queen rapper’s claims that Cardi had tried to join the “Krippy Kush (Remix)” track, and noting that while, as a “street bitch,” she won’t be taking legal action for the NYFW fight, she might consider suing Minaj for defamation of character. In the penultimate video, Cardi admits that she, too, is tired of the months-long feud, and is happy to either talk or fight it all out with Minaj; she concludes the series with a bit of advice for her fellow New Yorker: “Focus on yourself, focus on your craft, ’cause you’re out here fucking up your legacy, looking like a fucking hater.”

After they had both taken a few more shots, each on their preferred form of social media—Minaj via Twitter retweets and Cardi on Instagram—Minaj offered up yet another olive branch. “Ok you guys, let’s focus on positive things only from here on out. We’re all so blessed. I know this stuff is entertaining & funny to a lot of people but I won’t be discussing this nonsense anymore,” she tweeted on Monday night. Cardi, apparently equally tired from a long day of back-and-forth, reposted Minaj’s tweet on Instagram, adding, “alright then! Let’s keep it positive and keep it pushing!” Beef, squashed.

In her recent W cover story, Cardi explained how the feud had found such longevity rather than fizzling out like so many other music industry spats. “For a while now she’s been taking a lot of shots at me,” she said of Minaj. “I spoke to her twice before, and we came to an understanding. But she kept it going.” Though she tried to ignore those shots, Cardi said she wasn’t able to ignore an instance in which, she claimed, Minaj liked and then unliked a tweet about Cardi’s parenting skills to her newborn daughter, Kulture. “I love my daughter. I’m a good-ass fucking mom. So for somebody that don’t have a child to like that comment? So many people want to say that party wasn’t the time or the place, but I’m not going to catch another artist in the grocery store or down the block.”