To promote her second album, Am I The Drama?, released on Friday, September 19, seven years after her debut, rapper Cardi B went all out. In the days leading up to the launch of this eagerly awaited record, the queen of American rap staged playful videos on her social media accounts. To remind her fans of her modest beginnings in the Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights in New York City, she imitated Harlem's street vendors, offering incense and her CD to passersby. In another video, she wandered through a New York subway car with a cardboard box filled with copies of her new album. Born Belcalis Almánzar, the Afro-Caribbean artist − whose previous album, Invasion of Privacy (2018), won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album and saw every track go platinum − even used her civil lawsuit as a marketing tool.

In California, at the end of August, a security guard accused Cardi B of assaulting, scratching and insulting her in February 2018, demanding the hefty sum of $24 million in damages. The broadcast of the hearings on the Court TV YouTube channel became a major echo chamber for the rapper, who reminded both the plaintiff's attorneys and her fans of her sharp wit, innate sense for punchlines and passion for wigs (sporting a different one each day). On her social media, she now offers a "Courtroom" version of her album for sale, including a small poster slipped inside the vinyl featuring four photos of her funniest facial expressions from the trial.

On September 3, after successfully convincing the court that she was not the aggressor, Cardi B was acquitted. The security guard had filmed her without consent as she entered a clinic for a gynecological exam while a few weeks pregnant with her first child, and the following altercation between the two women was interrupted by clinic staff, who testified in the rapper's favor. Outside the courthouse, Cardi B took the opportunity to warn anyone who might try to sue her for money in the future: "I'm going to countersue and I'm going to make you pay." Then, when a journalist asked an indiscreet question about her new pregnancy, she threw a pen at him and commanded that he "respect women!"

You have 55.9% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.