Cardi B is facing some public scrutiny once again. Her most recent single, “Hot Sh*t,” featuring Kanye West and Lil Durk, is facing plagiarism accusations. Back in July, the Dominican rapper told Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe that “Hot Sh*t” was first recorded around 2019 and is “a bit older” than her megahit “WAP.” However, another rapper disagrees.
On Sept. 4, rapper Pakk Riley shared a video clip on his Twitter account accusing Cardi of stealing his song. “Look, she done did it again y’all,” said Riley in the clip as he played both tracks and pointed out their similarities.
“Now look at the date when I wrote this song,” Cardi wrote in a now-deleted tweet with a screen recording of a Notes memo written on Mar. 15, 2020. “Waiting on my engineer to send me the file of my voice with the dates. Muncher.”
“It’s getting spicey now,” Riley rebutted. “She using top-industry technology to change dates [and for real] you don’t write so how is the lyrics in [your phone]?” In another deleted response, Cardi responded with a video tweet of a “Hot Sh*t” reference track with a creation date of May 2020. “
Before publishing time, Cardi deleted all the tweets in response to Riley and opted to tweet a link to her official merch store, which features T-shirts that read, “Why am I trending?”
2022 has seen an influx of major artists getting caught up in copyright lawsuits or royalty disputes. Back in March, it was revealed that rapper Missy Elliott was receiving most of the royalties for Bad Bunny’s “Safaera” for sampling “Get Ur Freak On.” Over the summer, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” was served with a lawsuit for copyright infringement. In 2023, Taylor Swift will be going to trial for accusations that she copied lyrics from 3LW’s “Playas Gon’ Play” for her hit “Shake it Off.”