Review
Genre and Mood
Cardi B’s Money is East Coast hip-hop with trap drums, and Stereogum summed it up as “pretty much entirely Cardi talking shit over a few bass tones and piano notes”. It is confident, provocative and bold, a celebration of financial stability delivered with no softening at all.
Song Summary
Money was Cardi B’s first solo single after her debut album Invasion of Privacy, released by Atlantic on 23 October 2018, two days earlier than announced because it had leaked. She wrote it with its producer, J. White Did It. The song is built almost entirely on her voice: a stripped-down drum beat, bass tones and piano notes are all the music there is.
Musical Breakdown
The sources describe the sound rather than the order of its parts, so this follows the sound.
The Beat
Rolling Stone heard “a stomping yet simple beat built around spitfire trap drums and stark piano strikes”. Nothing else competes for space.
The Voice
Over it Cardi flexes, with a sneer Stereogum called larger than life and traced back to Bodak Yellow. She taunts rivals and boasts, and the beat leaves every word exposed.
The Hook
Here the critics disagree. Rolling Stone praised the hook; Stereogum wrote that the song only barely has a chorus.
Concepts in Focus
A hook is the short idea a song is built to stick with you, and Money tests the definition. With so little music, there is no big sung chorus or synth line to carry it; whatever sticks has to come from the repeated words and the way Cardi delivers them. That is why one critic heard a strong hook and another barely heard a chorus.
The music video, directed by Jora Frantzis and released on 21 December 2018, does what the beat leaves out and fills every frame. Cardi appears as a statue in a glass case in an art museum, in a jewel-covered bikini in a bank vault, and in a black leather corset in a strip club with dollars flying, beside a nude piano player and a breastfeeding mother in couture. Vogue called it “a full-out catalogue” of her fashion moments, and it won Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards.
Artistic Context
Money arrived six months after Invasion of Privacy, and Billboard heard Cardi “dashing back to her mixtape roots”. Its first televised performance came at the 61st Grammy Awards in February 2019, opened by pianist Chloe Flower at the piano. For the same voice on an equally bare beat two years later, try Cardi B – WAP (feat. Megan Thee Stallion).
Impact and Reception
Money peaked at number thirteen on the Billboard Hot 100, reached number one on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart and has been certified five times platinum in the United States. Stereogum called it “exactly the sort of song that Cardi B should be making right now”. Listen for how much a rapper can do with almost nothing underneath.
