Cardi B

AFP via Getty Images

Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B is setting the stage for her long-awaited sophomore album. Am I the Drama?, slated for release next month, arrives next month and marks the Bronx-bred MC’s first full-length since 2018. After a string of hit singles like “WAP” and “Up” in the first half of the decade and more recently with “Enough (Miami)” and “Bongos,” Cardi gave her first taste of Am I the Drama? last month with “Outside.”

Cardi’s follow-up single, “Imaginary Playerz,” shows that she’s not just ready to have a good time; she’s prepared to show she deserves her spot among rap’s greats. The track pays tribute to Jay-Z’s “Imaginary Player,” coincidentally from his own sophomore album. And like Jay-Z on the original, Cardi takes time on the track to toot her own horn.

“Now I spit that other s**t, pretty motherf**ker s**t / Cardi B, every song platinum, I’m not the other b***h / Whatever you was gon’ pay hеr, you gotta double it / Gloryhole, b***hes don’t know who thеy f**kin’ with,” she raps. “My flop and your flop is not the same / If you did my numbers, y’all would pop champagne / If I did your numbers, I would hop out a plane.”

Earlier this year, Cardi teased that the forthcoming album would deliver something new in the music scene today.

“I feel like it’s unexpected and I feel like it’s something that’s not really out right now,” she told Billboard. “It’s gonna be things that people do expect me and a lot of things people don’t expect from me.”

The past year of has been a whirlwind for Cardi personally, from filing for divorce a second time last July and having her third child last September to her current relationship with New England Patriots player Stefon Diggs. Naturally, that bled over into the recording process. “It’s a lot of lover girl things, too, on my album. I’ve been heartbroken and then I’m loving again, and then I’m exploring again,” she said.

Am I the Drama? is out Sept. 19.