Nicki Minaj is one of many celebrating Cardi B's ascendance to No. 1 on the Hot 100 today. The Queens rapper showed love to her Bronx peer in a message on Twitter. "Congratulations to a fellow NEW YAWKA on a RECORD BREAKING achievement," she wrote. "Bardi, this is the only thing that matters!!! Enjoy it."
The "record breaking" factor Minaj is likely referring to in regards to "Bodak Yellow" is the fact that the song is the first solo female rap No. 1 in 19 years, and only the second ever. The first time it happened was Lauryn Hill's 1998 single "Doo Wop (That Thing)."
Nicki has not had a single reach No. 1 on the Hot 100 yet, but she is not without her chart achievements. Last March, Nicki surpasses Aretha Franklin as the female artist with the most Hot 100 entries at 76. By August, she had upped that total to 80. "Rake It Up," her recent collaboration with Yo Gotti, reached a new peak on the Hot 100 this week, moving to No. 8.
Minaj reached the No. 2 position on the Hot 100 in 2014 with "Anaconda." In a recent interview with Dazed, Nicki suggested that her next move will be bigger and better than anything she's done before. "This era will be a billion times more epic than anything 'Anaconda' could have delivered," she said. "I think this era will definitely be the most memorable and the most impactful of my career yet."
We should hear exactly what Minaj is talking about when she releases her long-awaited fourth studio album, though she's taking her time with that. "I can't say if I'm fifty-per-cent, eighty-per-cent or ten-per-cent done, because I don't know," she said. "Tomorrow, I might walk into the studio and decide that I don't like anything I've done in the last six months. Or, tomorrow I might walk in and feel like the whole album is done. There's so much beauty in not knowing."