Cardi B has released a new one-off single titled “Press.” Her point being: she doesn’t want it.
“Cardi don’t need more press,” she spits above thudding, foreboding bass and an orchestral score fit for a first-person shooter game. “Kill ’em all/Put them hoes to rest/Walk in, bulletproof vest!”
She first previewed the song on social media Wednesday, with a photo of a handcuffed Aileen Wuornos, the former sex worker-turned-vigilante serial killer. Cardi chased it with a photo of herself in the same cuffed pose, gritting her teeth from inside a courtroom. The final teaser revealed her stripped naked (with censor bars) and flanked by paparazzi outside the courtroom. Though she dropped Invasion of Privacy in 2018, she continues to wrestle with overexposure on “Press.”
The Grammy-winning rapper has gone through the ringer in the headlines, so to speak. As a relatively new mother, she’s been scrutinized for lavishing her a 10-month old daughter with diamonds; then once more after she eschewed a gym routine for cosmetic surgery (which she flaunts in the artwork for “Press”). But due to a grueling recovery process, she was forced to cancel several tour dates. “My job as an entertainer is a 24-hour job, bro,” she explained to her fans, to whom she issued an apology via Instagram. “So no I don’t have time to work out… I wanted specific things that I know that no matter how much I work out won’t get fixed… I’m cancelling millions of dollars in shows, but health is wealth so I have to do what I have to do.”
The new song follows her feature in DJ Khaled’s “Wish Wish,” in which she and 21 Savage exchange bars amid pyrotechnics and motocross daredevils. Cardi B will resume her tour Sunday, June 2nd at the HOT 97 Summer Jam in East Rutherford, New Jersey.