By now, most of us know that Harlem-born rapper and artist Azealia Banks has shouldered her fair share of controversies and Twitter beefs over the past few years, at the same time that she’s been releasing consistently impressive music.
The latest subject of her criticism is none other than rapper Cardi B.
Earlier this morning, Azealia Banks appeared on the staple New York radio show The Breakfast Club, where talked about her new single “Anna Wintour,” addressed her criticism of Cardi B, and referred to the Dominican-Trinidadian rapper as a “caricature of a black woman.”
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In the interview, she told hosts Charlamagne and DJ Envy, “Two years ago, the conversation surrounding black women’s culture was really reaching an all-time high, and we were really like discussing our power amongst ourselves, and, you know, Beyoncé came out with Lemonade. There was just this really, really, really intelligent conversation going on nationally and then everything just kind of changed and then it was like Cardi B,” Banks said. “I’m just talking about this caricature of a black woman that black women themselves would never be able to get away with. Like, if my spelling and grammar was that bad, I’d be canceled. If Nicki Minaj spelled like that, we would be ragging on her all day.”
This isn’t the first time Azealia Banks has shared her controversial comments on Cardi B. After “Bodak Yellow” soared to the top of the charts at the end of September, Banks claimed she “wanted spicy Latina” Cardi B, not “poor man’s Nicki” in an interview with XXL. In the same XXL interview, she showed love for Cardi and explained how much she identified with the former reality TV star, who reminds her of “all the girls I grew up on the block with, all the Dominican babysitters.”
After the interview aired Friday morning, Cardi B took to Twitter to challenge her critics, asking, “Why do I feel like I have to apologize for being who I am? Talking how I talk and being what ya call ‘Ghetto.’”
Azealia Banks responded to Cardi’s frustration with a tweet that referred to the Invasion of Privacy artist as “Yara from ESL room 205.”
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Banks’s claim that Cardi B is a “caricature of a black woman” echoes some previous comments on her fellow New York rapper, as she once said that Cardi was “only black when blacks want to include themselves in a success story.”
Banks’s provocative statements continue to treat blackness and Latinidad as exclusive, and many Afro-Latina fans remain upset that the Harlem-born rapper, who grew up around Dominican culture, continues to perpetuate such misconceptions about race and ethnic identity.
Watch the full The Breakfast Club interview here.