Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar Cephus Spanish: born October 11, 1992), famous as Cardi B, is an American rapper. As per to many media outlets, she is regarded as one of the most commercially successful female rappers of her generation. She born and raised in New York City, she rise to fame via Vine and Instagram.
From 2015 to early 2017, she starred as a regular cast member on the VH1 reality tv series Love & Hip Hop: New York, which depicted her pursuit of her music aspirations, and earned more fame with the release of her two mixtapes: Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1 (2016) and Vol. 2 (2017).
Cardi’s 1st studio album, Invasion of Privacy (2018), debuted at no. one on the Billboard 200 and was listed on the top female rap album of the 2010s by Billboard. Critically acclaimed, it made Cardi B the 1st female artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album as a single artist, and marked the 1st female rap album in 15 years nominated for Album of the Year.
It spawned 2 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100; with “Bodak Yellow”, its lead single, Cardi B became the 1st female rapper to top the Hot 100 with a single song in the 21st century and the 1st to earn a diamond-certified song by the RIAA, while “I Like It” Noticed the 1st time a female rapper attained numerous number-one songs on the Hot 100.
Cardi’s 3rd Hot 100 number-one, the collaboration “Girls Like You” with band Maroon 5, made her the only female rapper to earn numerous diamond-certified songs by the RIAA. Cardi, has since released two singles: “WAP” (featuring Megan Thee Stallion) in 2020 and “Up” in 2021, both of which peaked the Hot 100 and other charts widely.
Named by Forbes as one of the most inspirational female rappers in history, Cardi B holds numerous records among lady in hip hop; Cardi is the female rapper with the most number-one singles (five) on the Billboard Hot 100, the only to earn many solo number ones and the only to achieve number ones in 20 years (2010s and 2020s) on the chart.
Cardi is also the female rapper with the most diamond-certified songs by the RIAA, the highest-certified female rapper of all time on their Top Artists (Digital Singles) ranking, and has 100 million certified units including album and songs were sold in the US alone. Including, Cardi is the female rapper with the most songs with a billion streams on Spotify—where she also has the most-streamed female rap album.
She was the 1st lead artist to top the Billboard Global 200. Cardi’s awards has a Grammy Award, eight Billboard Music Awards, 6 Guinness World Records, 6 American Music Awards, 14 BET Hip Hop Awards, and 2 ASCAP Songwriter of the Year awards. In 2018, Time magazine included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2020, Billboard honored her as Woman of the Year. Apart from music, she became the creative director of entertainment magazine Playboy in 2022.
Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar was born on October 11, 1992, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Cardi’s dad Carlos is Dominican and her mom Clara is a Trinidadian of African and Spanish descent; Almánzar identifies as an Afro-Latina. Almánzar was raised in the Highbridge neighborhood of the South Bronx, and spent much time at her paternal grandmother’s house in Washington Heights, which she credits with giving her “such a thick accent
Almánzar developed the stage name “Cardi B” as a derivation of Bacardi, a rum brand that was formerly her nickname. Cardi, has a younger sister, Hennessy Carolina, and was born in 1995. She has stated she was a gang member with the Bloods in her youth, since age 16, but addressed she would not requested joining a gang. 
She attended Renaissance High School for Musical Theater & Technology, a vocational high school on the Herbert H. Lehman High School campus. While her teens, Cardi B was employed at an Amish deli in Tribeca. She was fired and became a dancer at a strip club across the street.
Cardi B has said that becoming a stripper was positive for her life in numerous ways: “It really saved me from a lot of stuffs. When I began stripping I went back to school.”
She said that she became a stripper to escape poverty and domestic violence, having been in an abusive connection at the time later being kicked out of her mom’s house, and that stripping was her only way to earn enough money to ran from the situation and get an education.
She attended Borough of Manhattan Community College before finally dropping out. While stripping, Cardi B lied to her mom by telling her she was making money by babysitting.
In 2013, she started to gain limelight due to many of her videos spreading on internet, on Vine and her Instagram page. In 2016, Cardi B was featured in her 1st endorsement deal with Romantic Depot, a large New York chain of lingerie stores that sell sexual health and wellness products. The ad campaign was featured on radio and cable TV.
Cardi B made her film debut in Hustlers directed by Lorene Scafaria, opposite Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, and Lili Reinhart. The film was came on September 13, 2019. Cardi B, along with opportunity the Rapper and T.I., were confirmed as judges for the Netflix series Rhythm + Flow, a ten-part hip-hop talent search that premiered on October 9, 2019, which she also executive produced.
Cardi B made a last-minute appearance in “Big Paper”, from DJ Khaled’s album Khaled Khaled released on April 30, 2021. Cardi earned 2 nominations for the BET Award for Video of the Year, for the videos “Up” and “WAP”, winning for the latter and becoming the 1st female rapper to win Video of the Year as a lead artist.
