As the pressure heats up for Cardi B to deliver an album that will live up to the impossible hype and success generated by 2017’s “Bodak Yellow,” it’s only natural that the reception of her third–yes, third–single (she’s doing that thing where we’re supposed to accept not one, but two, day old bread singles as part of the album even though they’re standalone tracks–it’s kind of like how Madonna tacked on “Die Another Day” to the American Life album to make it more robust) should be met with a… mixed reaction.
The cautionary “Be Careful,” rumored to be a warning at her for now fiancé, Offset, after his alleged infidelity, is filled with a side of Cardi B we haven’t quite yet been acquainted with: her vulnerable one. As Nicki Minaj–the go-to comparison–did on her own debut album with such tracks as “Right Thru Me” and “Save Me,” Cardi seems to be opening her fans’ eyes to the idea that she has a panoply of emotions outside of the impenetrable “gangsta bitch”/stripper one.
More than just a threat to her “steady” about not suffering fools for much longer, Cardi also speaks on the double standard of men who cheat, duly noting, “I could’ve did what you did to me a few times/But if I decide to slide, find a nigga/Fuck him, suck him, you woulda been pissed/But that’s not my M.O., I’m not that type of bitch.” Here, too, Cardi debunks the presumed myth of her promiscuity and lack of care for anything beyond “red bottoms” and “new whips.” No, she’s a loyal monogamist at heart–if she’s in a relationship.
One also gets a sense of tongue-in-cheek irony punctuated by the fanciful backbeat–almost mirrored after the kind you would hear playing out of a taco truck–to contrast Cardi’s seriousness in expressing her fears and pain over the potential of getting a “bruisin'” to her feelings. Then again, part of bruised feelings in love stems from a colossal wounding to one’s ego. Especially if you’ve been told you’re the hottest thing in the music industry like Cardi B. Information like that spells never being treated in the abusive fashion of Keisha in Belly (one of the best pop culture references made in a song in recent memory–Belly really doesn’t get enough respect).
Arguably the most incisive reasoning of all in the song–in terms of making a man see the frivolity of his “need” for a slapdash sexual encounter–comes when Cardi B breaks down, “You want some random bitch up in your bed/She don’t even know your middle name.” So it is that with one line, Cardi B instantly debunks the fetishized fantasy men have about meaningless sex–for it is precisely that meaninglessness that makes it so unsatisfying (this often being the motive behind why he’ll simply continue spreading his seed all over town in search of that unfindable satisfaction).
While Cardi’s willing to forgive, she can only tolerate being cuckolded (the term can be used for a woman as well as far as I’m concerned) so many times, realizing, “It’s gonna hurt me to hate you, but lovin’ you is worse/It all stops so abrupt, we start switchin’ it up/Teach me to be like you so I can not give a fuck.” And it is with that specific line that she cuts to the root of the primary issue between men and women, the latter sect of humanity seeming to possess, well, more humanity than the former when it comes to comprehending the delicacy of feelings.
For those who have been unimpressed by Cardi’s first official album offering (as it’s been said, “Bodak Yellow” and “Bartier Cardi” were more stand apart in their releases), perhaps it’s because coming around to a new persona in a female artist is always difficult for audiences (though Justin Timberlake can somehow get away with his “experimental” Man of the Woods bullshit). That Cardi is doing something of the inverse of what Rihanna did–going from “bad girl” to “good girl”–is also subversive. Almost as subversive as the fact that women still need to be labeled as one or the other when their emotional complexities are so far-reaching that to give a name to what a woman is would be like trying to describe in just one sentence why there is no god. Though, for some, that sentence would encompass the fact that the presence of “temptresses” on this earth is the very summation of why it’s pure evil.
