Am I the Drama? debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, her second consecutive album to debut atop the chart. It earned 200,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, marking the biggest week for a female R&B/hip-hop album in 2025. It made Cardi B the only female rapper in history to debut her first two albums at number one on the Billboard 200. Upon release, it received positive reviews, with critics deeming it a strong return to form, highlighting Cardi B's lyrical delivery, rap flow, and honesty throughout the album, with criticism aimed at the album's perceived excessive length and the inclusion of previously released tracks.
The album was preceded by the release of two singles: its lead single "Outside" was released on June 20, 2025, and was followed by the single "Imaginary Playerz" on August 15. The former reached the top ten on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 27 on the Billboard Global 200. The third single "Safe", featuring Kehlani, was released on the same day as the album, and reached number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album also includes the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "WAP", featuring Megan Thee Stallion, and "Up". To promote the album, Cardi B will embark on the Little Miss Drama Tour in 2026.
Background and development
Following the release of Invasion of Privacy in 2018, Cardi B partly took time off to focus on motherhood and ventured into other forms of entertainment, including television[1] and fashion.[2] Starting with "Money" six months after the album, she released several standalone singles and collaborations over the following seven years. Apart from single releases, the rapper occasionally previewed snippets of other tracks on her social media.[3][4] Cardi B released the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "WAP" featuring Megan Thee Stallion on August 7, 2020, and "Up" on February 5, 2021.[5][6] The rapper revealed that the album would shortly follow; however, the project was delayed multiple times, citing perfectionism and pressure to live up to expectations.[7]
Arriving over seven years after its predecessor, the project was recorded over a six-year period[8][9] and features collaborations with artists she has worked with before as well as new collaborators.[10] After sharing a teaser related to an announcement on June 22, 2025, the rapper officially revealed the album artwork and the release date the next day via social media. Am I the Drama? features twenty-three tracks, including "WAP", "Up" and the lead single, "Outside".[11] The inclusion of "WAP" and "Up" made the album tie with her own Invasion of Privacy as the female rap album with the most number-one songs in Hot 100 history (two each), but also drew some criticism, to which Cardi B responded by tweeting that the songs were among her biggest hits and "deserve a home," even though they were released during the album's creative process.[12]
Release and promotion
After the album announcement, Cardi B rolled out a series of alternative vinyl and CD covers in the following weeks, titled the "Imaginary Playerz",[13] "Pretty & Petty",[14] and "Magnet" versions.[15] In August 2025, she appeared in court after a former security guard sued the rapper for allegedly assaulting her in 2018 during an interaction at a medical office. Cardi B's testimony at the televised trial went viral for her unfiltered, charismatic persona, resulting in numerous clips and memes shared across social media.[16] After she was found not liable, Cardi B capitalized on the memes and announced on September 3 that she would release special CD versions of her album titled "The Courtroom Edition", featuring photos of her viral moments from the trial on the cover.[17]
Cardi B held a pop-up event on September 13 titled "Bodega Baddie" at a bodega in Washington Heights, New York City.[18] On September 15, she announced the list of featured artists on the album, consisting of Summer Walker, Selena Gomez, Kehlani, Lizzo, Cash Cobain, Tyla, Janet Jackson and Megan Thee Stallion.[19] Shortly after, Lourdiz announced that she would be a featured artist on the album via Instagram. Cardi B revealed the album tracklist on September 18, including the aforementioned feature from Lourdiz.[20] From September 19 to 25, Cardi B embarked on a meet-and-greet tour across the United States, visiting six stops.[21]
Following the album release on September 19, Cardi B unveiled a "Bonus Edition" for digital download and streaming with the additional track "Don't Do Too Much" on September 23.[22] The rapper further released the "ErrTime Edition" for digital download and streaming on September 24, featuring a remix of "ErrTime" with Latto.[23] On September 25, she released a limited webstore-exclusive version called the "Bardi Gang Edition", only available for digital download until midnight the same day. The version featured her previous singles "Please Me" with Bruno Mars, "Press", "Bongos" featuring Megan Thee Stallion, "Like What (Freestyle)", and "Enough (Miami)", as well as a voice note titled "Dear Bardi Gang".[24]
Singles
Cardi B released the lead single "Outside" on June 20, 2025, which became a viral hit and earned her a top-ten placement on the Billboard Hot 100.[25] It marked the first song by a female rapper to debut in the top ten since her 2024 single "Enough (Miami)".[26] The album's second single "Imaginary Playerz" was released on August 15,[27] peaking at number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100.[28] The album's third single, "Safe" featuring Kehlani, was released alongside the album on September 19,[29] peaking at number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100.[28]
Tour
To promote the album, Cardi B will embark on the Little Miss Drama Tour in 2026. It consists of 34 shows in North America and is scheduled to commence on February 11, 2026, in Palm Desert and end on April 18 in Atlanta.[30]
Title and visuals
Cardi B was inspired to name the album Am I the Drama? after the amount of "real-life drama" she had been experiencing. She also drew inspiration from a meme in the online Drag Race community, specifically a quote from Scarlet Envy said during "Meet the Queens" of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. Following the announcement, Cardi B's representative announced that she and Scarlet Envy had plans to collaborate in the near future. On June 27, Scarlet Envy brought Cardi B onstage on the LadyLand Festival, where the latter performed "Outside".[31][32]
Black birds, identified variously in the media as crows or ravens, are a major visual motif used for the album and its promotion.[33][34] The cover art depicts Cardi B in a red bodysuit with several black birds in the background. One of them is perched atop one of her shoes.[35] A CGI flock of aggressive black birds attack Cardi B, who tries to get inside a car to escape, in the album's official trailer. Jonah Krueger of Consequence and Atreyo Palit of Screen Rant wrote that the video and cover art's aesthetic were reminiscent of The Birds (1963) by Alfred Hitchcock; Krueger made an additional comparison to Home Alone 2 (1992) by Chris Columbus.[36][37] During Cardi B's appearance at the Schiaparelli fashion show in Paris in July, Cardi B brought with her a live black bird on her arm. Multiple news outlets named the bird as a raven or as a crow.[34][38] Julia Reinstein of The Cut argued that it was more likely a rook, a member of the corvid family of which ravens and crows are also a part.[39]
Am I the Drama? received generally positive reviews from music critics upon release. According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Am I the Drama? received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 74 out of 100 from 13 critic scores.[41] The review aggregator site AnyDecentMusic? compiled ten reviews and gave the album an average of 6.7 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.[40]
Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone described Am I the Drama? as a "massive comeback triumph" and a "fittingly grand return for a queen who never left the throne."[50] Writing for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis complimented the album's "sharp, impressively witty lyrics" which he described as being "delivered with brutal vigour". He described the album's material as "raw and powerful", while mentioning rapper Young Thug shifting the release date of his upcoming album, noting that "[Am I the Drama? is] not an album that a rival would want to go up against".[45] Steven J. Horowitz of Variety referred to Am I the Drama? as a "unflinching, raw and refined" album that "never loses its footing", and praised tracks concerning her divorce such as "Shower Tears" and "Magnet" for giving the album "much-needed heft". He noted the addition of the previously released tracks "WAP" and "Up", describing them as "[slotting] comfortably with the rest of the record", and concluded that the album "shrugs off the threat of a sophomore slump".[52]
Writing for Clash, Robin Murray commented how Am I the Drama? is an album that "at first curiously struggles to find its footing" before an "assured mid-section guides Cardi B to the next level of her career". He noted the tracks "Pick It Up" with Selena Gomez and "Bodega Baddie" as being highlights from the album, with the "dazzling light of their vocals honing in on femme effervescence" on the former, while describing the latter as "one of the record’s most confident solo expressions" and "the sound of an icon reclaiming their own identity".[43] Kiana Fitzgerald of Consequence noted the tracks addressing "other women MCs", such as the track "Magnet" which she describes as a "pointed attack" at fellow rapper JT that "shatters [JT's] image", along with the track "Pretty & Petty" "[re-escalating] her beef" with Boston rapper Bia. She described the singles "Outside" and "Imaginary Playerz" as "[sounding] like leftovers within the context of the album", concluding that Am I the Drama? is "no Invasion of Privacy", but "Cardi B is closer to fighting form than she’s been in years".[44]
In more mixed reviews, Sam Franzini of The Line of Best Fit described Cardi as not "making it any easier on herself" by releasing a new record "during a year that is several removed from when she was a topic of cultural conversation", but that "the field isn’t as stacked this year" with "rap dominated headlines", which should be "an open path to victory". However, he concluded that few of Am I the Drama?'s songs "seem poised to stick around", describing the album's tracks as "fine at best and miserable at worst". He offered praise to the previously released "WAP" and "Up", describing the former as "doing a lot of heavy lifting" and the latter as not "[loosing] any of its star power from 2021". Franzini highlighted the new track "Trophies" as a standout, describing it as "[providing] some intensity", while noting that the tracks "Magnet" and "Pretty & Petty" are "structurally solid but shallow".[46] Writing for The Times, Will Hodgkinson described Am I the Drama? as "a record that would have been seriously good at half the length".[53] Similarly, Kyann-Sian Williams of NME described the album as "bloated" and "unsure of its own identity".[48] Mary Chiney of Beats Per Minute noted that "even the weaker cuts" on the album "carry flashes of energy", and suggested that the album's perceived excessive length could tie in with Cardi's public persona, which she describes as "never [having] been singular" and that "multiplicity is her identity, and [Am I the Drama?] reflects it without apology".[54]
In the United States, Am I the Drama? debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with first week sales of 200,000 album-equivalent units, consisting of 88,000 pure sales, 110,000 streaming-equivalent units (translated from 145.72 million on-demand streams) and 2,000 track-equivalent units.[57] In doing so, Cardi B achieved her second consecutive number one album in the country, while earning the biggest sales week for an R&B/hip-hop album by a woman in 2025.[57] She also became the only female rapper in history to have her first two albums debut atop the Billboard 200.[58] Additionally, the album was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on its first day of release,[59][60] becoming the fastest album in history to be certified platinum,[61] and was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA on September 29, becoming the highest-certified female rap album of the 2020s.[62]
Am I the Drama? became the female rap album with the most entries in Billboard Hot 100 history (18 entries) with "WAP" and "Up" having previously charted in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Of the 23 tracks that appear on the standard tracklist of ‘Am I The Drama?’, 16 of them charted simultaneously on the Hot 100 – a feat that makes her the first female rapper to claim as many concurrent spots.[63][64] In its second week of release, it charted ten songs simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100, one of only two female rap albums in history to achieve this feat, the other being Cardi B’s debut album, Invasion of Privacy (2018).[65] Additionally, the album ties with Cardi B's own Invasion of Privacy as the female rap album with the most number-one songs in Hot 100 history, with two each.[66]
Outside of the US, Am I the Drama? debuted at number 6 on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart,[67] and number 8 on the ARIA Top 50 Albums chart in Australia,[68] becoming Cardi B's second consecutive top ten album in both countries after Invasion of Privacy (2018), while also earning a Platinum certification in the former. Additionally, the album reached number one on the Australian Hip Hop/R&B Albums chart.[69] The album charted moderately throughout Europe, attaining its highest position in the United Kingdom, where it also reached number two on the UK Hip Hop and R&B Albums chart.[70]
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