NEW YORK (AP) — The anticipation around Cardi B’s debut album has been scorching hot, so when breakthrough artist finally debuted the full album at a party late Thursday, she told the DJ to make sure the sound level was perfect.
“DJ, make it a little loud ’cause I don’t feel it in my bones,” she said after the second track played, while the DJ worked on the sound.
That’s when Cardi B’s silly and likable personality — which has helped her skyrocket on social media and the pop charts — shined brightly. She went into karaoke-mode, singing some of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” even getting the audience of music industry players in New York City to participate.
But the DJ needed two more minutes.
“Two minutes? What the (heck) I’m supposed to do with two minutes? I’m running out of jokes. I’m running out of entertainment,” she said, then reminding the crowd that she’s performing on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend.
Cardi B, the 25-year-old Bronx rapper, released her major-label debut album, “Invasion of Privacy,” on Friday. It comes 10 months after she dropped “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves),” the ubiquitous rap song that topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in October, making her one of three females to top the pop charts with a song last year.
When that Grammy-nominated song came up during the listening, she skipped it: “I know…