Cardi B Responds To ‘Bongos’ Criticism

Cardi B has responded to the ongoing negative feedback surrounding her latest song, “Bongos,” featuring Megan Thee Stallion. Speaking with TMZ Hip Hop ahead of her performance at the 2023 VMAs in NYC, Cardi defended her artistic choices, emphasizing her role as a trendsetter and her inclination to explore new sounds in her music.

“I’m a trendsetter; I have to do things different,” she asserted. “I love funk music, and when I love something I gotta put that together with my sound with hip hop. I love funk, I love them both. I cannot do trap beats, I cannot talk about fighting b-tches, I cannot talk about all these things all the time I could do everything.”

Continuing, she encouraged understanding of diverse cultural influences in music. “Get to know different cultures, don’t be ignorant neither, because the beat is actually somebody else’s culture and you wouldn’t want people to disrespect your culture, so you don’t disrespect people’s culture.”

Watch her conversation with TMZ below.

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion dropped “Bongos” on Friday (Sept. 8), three years after the release of “W.A.P. Since its release, the song has elicited mixed reactions from both fans and critics. In a recent episode of “The Joe Budden Podcast,” which aired on Sunday (Sept. 10), failed rapper-turned-podcaster Joe Budden shared his disappointment with the new single. 

According to the East Harlem native, the hook of “Bongos” doesn’t have the catchiness he’s come to expect from both artists involved, and he predicts it may struggle to sustain its popularity.

“This record don’t seem like it has lasting power,” he began. “The hook is not hookin’ for me. There’s nothin’ in it to make it stay, one, and two…this commercialized ratchet has passed, it’s ghetto ratchet time. And neither one of them are ghetto ratchet on this song.”

He added that both artists seem a bit out of their element on the track. “We need a ‘Bodak Yellow’ now,” he continued. “This sounds like two women who can’t make a song.”

Despite Budden’s strong criticism, the single is projected to make waves on the Billboard Hot 100 next week. Cardi and Megan are also slated to perform the track live at the 2023 VMAs on Tuesday, Sept. 12.

In a prior conversation with Hot 97, Cardi recounted how she advocated for the collaboration with Megan, despite her team’s initial inclination towards a Latin artist feature. “My team wanted to go more like Latin artists, and I was like, ‘I hear Megan, yeah, I hear Megan.’ They’re like, ‘Really? You don’t see it? Like you don’t see this like more Latin?’ But I’m like, ‘No, I see Megan,’ and then, like, exactly what I was like hearing in my head, I sent her the song.”