Cardi B shares why she called out BIA on Pretty & Petty

Cardi B’s “Pretty & Petty” is one of the most talked about tracks on her new album Am I The Drama? On the three-minute track, Cardi claps back at Boston rapper BIA, whom she traded shots with last year. This morning, Cardi B explained on The Breakfast Club why she reignited the beef, saying she took exception to BIA mentioning her kids, Kulture and Wave, on last year’s “SUE MEEE?” diss.

“You mentioned my kids tryna be cute,” Cardi said of BIA. “She did her little diss and it was trash… I could’ve [left] it at that, but everything on social media is gonna be seen. When my kids grow up one day and they see that you mentioned them, they’re gonna ask me, ‘So what you said? What you did [in response]?’ I’m not gonna tell my kids, ‘I felt like she took the high road cause she lost, cause people wasn’t on her side.’ Naw, I’m not sayin’ that to my kids. I’m [gonna be] like, ‘You see how I violated?”

The war of words started last year when BIA rapped, “I hear bitches poppin’ shit and that’s so funny to me/ How you say you runnin’ down but you can’t walk on the beat?” on Dreezy’s “Bitch Duh” remix. (This was believed to be a nod to Cardi admitting she wanted to hop on a remix of Ice Spice’s “Munch,” but couldn’t “catch the beat for shit.”)

Cardi replied on the remix of GloRilla and Megan Thee Stallion’s “Wanna Be,” rhyming, “Hope she talk like that when I see her/Bitch, please, don’t nobody wanna be ya.” BIA then came back with “SUE MEEE?,” rapping, “Thought your ass was for the culture, you just tryin’ to ride the wave/You should be home with your kids ’cause bitch, you speak like second grade.” The diss was widely panned, and the beef seemingly fizzled out.

But Cardi woke it back up on her new album’s most vitriolic track, coming out the gate with the challenge: “Name five BIA songs, gun pointin’ to your head.” She continued her lyrical assault from there, proclaiming, “Talkin’ about Kulture, you wildin’,” “It’s been two years since you put a number on the board,” and “They only book you when they can’t afford Coi [Leray].”

Cardi told The Breakfast Club that their beef started when BIA accused Cardi of copying her style. Cardi said the two had words, initially “cussin each other out,” until they had a “real conversation” where Cardi claimed she told BIA, “Listen: I’m not copyin’ you. You’re not a person that I look at or that I’m inspired by.”

She then accused BIA of “planting a seed” in the industry that Cardi was cheating on her ex-husband, Offset. “You was tryna mess things up in my home. You hated on me so much, and I kept saying prove it,” Cardi said. “You was doin’ all that shit and it was like ‘Aight bitch, now I got a wet belt for you and you ain’t even gonna know when it’s coming.’”