READ IT AT BILLBOARD (in print too)

Cardi B had a headache. I considered a Gay Talese tribute vis-à-vis Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, but Talese has been a completely wack presence in pop culture lately and besides, this was a rare opportunity to see who Cardi B is when she’s exhibiting that most un-Cardi B of characteristics: reserve. Still, there was color. Like in the cut scene where she was trying to eat a soppy pickle with heavily bejeweled, inch-and-a-half-long pink nails, maneuvering the spear so as to neither drip on her outfit nor fuck up her lipstick—a bit of patently Cardi B grotesquerie that seemed to underscore her innate ability to keep up appearances both high brow and low. Despite the pain between her temples, Cardi did her best to communicate what this moment’s like for her, having plunged into the mainstream after a couple years of dipping her red-bottoms in the water.