Cardi B

I pay my mama’s bills, I ain’t got no time to chill.

I only f**k with people who are secure enough to be happy for me and hype me up. I don’t want any ‘friends’ who fall silent during my success.

When you hear my lyrics, you hear the shots that I throw at people. I throw shots because I always been the underdog. I got rejected so many times, and I say it in my lyrics constantly.

Am I ever gonna grow a thick skin? No.

I have real good parents. They poor. They have regular, poor jobs and what not. They real good people and what not; I was just raised in a bad society.

A lot of people always question, ‘What else can she do, what else can she do?’ And I’m going to show you

In this trumpet I hear our icons and the sound of the future.

When Jazz broke through in England, I remember sneaking to listen on the radio much to my parent’s disapproval.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.

I felt a responsibility to present a viable alternative to the popular electric sound.

You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.

So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.

Sounds of daily life are musical. I try to absorb the intricacies of sounds as if I were listening to music.

I’m gonna live till I die.

I developed in my head that I’m never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it’s like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it’s more like concern. You’re concerned about the people – like meeting your in-laws for the first time.

People always ask, “Why jazz?” and I’m like “Why not?” It’s kind of like asking Seurat, “Why so many dots?” I imagine if you asked Bjork, “Why the Tibetan bells?” She’d probably be like “That’s just what I heard.” It’s the same thing. This is just the way I see music.

I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.

I think we musicians are emissaries. Every time we go before the public, we’re there to make converts.

Jazz affirms the noblest aspirations of character, individual discipline, perseverance and innovation.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line.