Elle unveiled Cardi B as their September cover star on Tuesday (Aug. 11), and in her cover story, the outspoken rapper got candid about the murder of Breonna Taylor, her upcoming sophomore album and more.
“That is so insane to me,” she said of the 26-year-old EMT, who was fatally shot while asleep by three Louisville police officers executing a no-knock search warrant on her apartment back in March.
“[I saw] Breonna Taylor’s name everywhere, but I didn’t really know her story. What they did to her is really f–ked up. Really f–ked up. What’s the excuse? Why is the cop not in jail? Wasn’t what he did a crime? It’s a crime! And no apology. No apology. No video of the cop coming out crying, ‘I f–ked up. I don’t this. I don’t that.’ Nothing. It’s nothing. I don’t even know how her mom still holds her head up. Unbelievable.”
And while Taylor’s name has gone viral in the months since her tragic death, Cardi called out her male counterparts in the world of hip-hop for not speaking out more in support of the murdered Black first responder. “A woman like Breonna Taylor, she was young,” she told Elle. “She looked like she was listening to your music. She looked like she was your fan. You should stick up for her.”
The star also took aim at Donald Trump in the cover story, and wasn’t afraid to get real about why she doesn’t support him as president. “Those people that he caters [to], he’s not going to do anything for them,” she said. “It’s not like Republicans are getting better housing. It’s not like Republicans are getting better benefits. They’re not. He’s not doing anything for anybody. He’s just saying things that appease the same people. I want a president who makes me feel secure. I want a president who understands the pain of the people. I want a president who is going to give us answers.
During the interview, Cardi also teased what fans can expect from her next album, which will serve as a follow-up to her Grammy-winning 2018 debut LP Invasion of Privacy and likely feature her raunchy new Megan Thee Stallion collaboration “WAP.”
“My music is always going to make a woman feel like a bad b–ch,” the rapper said. “When you make a woman feel like she’s the baddest b–ch in the room, to me, that’s female empowerment. But this album is going to be really different. Of course, it’s going to have my Lemonade moments, my personal relationship moments…I didn’t really like how my last song performed, so I just got my creativity back. I don’t want to just put out a single and have people buy it because I’m Cardi. I want to put out really good music.”
Check out Cardi’s Elle cover and more photos from the glitzy shoot below.
