Cardi B Says Fans Are Trying To Pit Her Against Nicki Minaj, But She Won't Take The Bait

Fans can't seem to let two female rappers dominate the music genre without fighting. But luckily, Cardi B won't feud with Nicki Minaj, despite some fans' wishes. In a new interview with Apple Music's Beats 1 Radio, the "Be Careful" singer addressed rumors of beef with Nicki Minaj and showed her admirable mindset about competition between women in the workplace.

Audiences love Love & Hip Hop and they love Real Housewives. Let's face it, they love watching grown women fight. Cardi, who's a L&HH alum, understands the attention that kind of drama attracts. However, she's not going to fight with a fellow respected female rapper to get it. "I just feel like it's really internet, made-up [beef]," she said about a feud between her and Nicki. "I really feel like fans, and people, they really wanna see that happen because it’s really entertaining to see people beef."

Last March, a deep-rooted, 10-year battle between Nicki and Remy Ma was revisited when Remy dropped the diss track "ShETHER" and Nicki responded with three new singles. Cardi even admitted to being sucked into that drama as a viewer. "It’s entertaining. I ain’t gonna front, when Nicki and Remy [Ma] was beefing, everybody was tuning in like ‘Oh, what’s next? What’s next?'" she said. "But I don't really have the time for that."

Cardi is never one to sugarcoat things, and she's not afraid to call out her own fans in order to shine light on the BS. "Fans just keep doing it. Y’all want me to say something bad," she said. "Y’all want to annoy me to the fact that I say something bad. I’m not falling for that."

Rumors of tension between the two rappers started last summer, when Cardi's career was really taking off. Rapper Azealia Banks called Cardi a "poor man's Nicki" on Twitter, and Nicki rapped, "I heard these labels tryna make another me" in "No Flag." Of course, fans immediately jumped to the false conclusion that the lyric was about Cardi, but Nicki shut that down on Twitter. However, in the fall, the two collaborated on "MotorSport" with Migos, but didn't share a shot in the video, which was plenty of fodder for the internet to work with.

"I heard that she just couldn't shoot that day," Cardi explained. "People just made a lot of theories and it's like, what is it that people expect from me to do or say? I already said she’s an amazing artist. I already said I paid my respects to her, I did videos before jamming to her songs."

And the respect seems to be mutual. When Cardi became the first female rapper to hit number one without a featured artist on her track since Lauryn Hill in 1998, Nicki congratulated her on Twitter (even though she has yet to achieve this herself).

If there ever is tension, Cardi said she'd hope they'd handle it the old-fashioned way, not through Twitter hoopla. "I spoke to her before, in person... I always say, if there's something you could talk it out, you could talk it out," she said. "It's not always ra ra ra this, ra ra ra that. We grown."

The 25-year-old rapper, whose name has become synonymous with "hustler," has her head in all the right places and remains focused. "If you ain't f*cking my man, or if you not taking my money from me, you not stopping my money, then I don't really give a f*ck about you," she said. Meanwhile, she tips her hat to other badass women through her music. "She Bad" gives shoutouts to prominent women with the lyrics: "I need Chrissy Teigen / Know a bad b*tch when I see one / Tell RiRi I need a threesome," and "Thru Your Phone" references Beyoncé's Lemonade.

Cardi B is sticking to her guns and avoiding unnecessary conflict, all while focusing on thriving and applauding other women in the process. That's a real hustler.