She returned to that Bronx classroom and burst into tears. It’s more like the weight of everything falling at once than sadness. In front of students at Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and Technology, Cardi B, one of the nation’s most popular rappers at the time, said what many people who grew up grinding seldom openly acknowledge: this stuff is hard. Extremely difficult. She was warned by her former teacher, and she wasn’t lying.
The education section of Cardi B’s story is easily overlooked. The hits, the feuds, the Grammys, the tabloids—the headlines have always been louder elsewhere. Her journey from a distracted teenager in the South Bronx to the first solo female rapper to win a Grammy for best rap album, however, is worth pondering. School was just one intricate aspect of the dirty path.
Born on October 11, 1992, Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar was raised in the Bronx by a father from the Dominican Republic and a mother from Trinidad. Her parents divorced when she was still a preteen, but a large extended family kept things together, as is common in large Caribbean families, despite the unforgiving neighborhood and difficult family circumstances. She had a performer’s instinct from the beginning. It wasn’t a subtle part. She ended up at Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and Technology, a specialized institution that at least guided her toward something genuine, because it was loud enough.
Her teachers took notice of her. That is important. “I was always asked by my teachers, ‘Why are you not paying attention? Why are you not taking these things seriously? During her visit to the school, she told a group of students, who likely understood how she felt, “You’re so smart.” A teacher has a specific type of frustration with a student that they can see clearly but are unable to fully connect with. Cardi B seemed to be that kind of student—clear potential, sporadic execution.
She went to college after graduating from high school. It was short-lived. It was more difficult than it seems to juggle classes and a low-paying deli job, and at some point the math stopped adding up. She began working as a stripper when she was nineteen, a decision that is discussed more than it is understood. She didn’t glamorize it. It was a practical, even desperate, way to get out of an abusive relationship and make enough money quickly to be significant. She was not receiving a curriculum-based education.
Looking back, it’s amazing how much she was learning anyhow. Her social media presence during those years, which was unvarnished and entirely authentic, was a form of literacy in and of itself. Before she ever figured out studios, she figured out audiences. It wasn’t so much luck that she joined Love & Hip Hop: New York in 2015 as it was the result of years of observing how attention functions and learning how to maintain it. Some degree holders never fully acquire that skill.
The subsequent musical career—”Bodak Yellow” peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, “Invasion of Privacy” taking home the Grammy in 2019, and “WAP” shattering streaming records—is frequently presented as a tale of poverty to wealth. However, it would be more accurate to describe it as a slow education in multiple subjects at once: business, public image, performance, and survival. curriculum that does not result in a diploma.
There was something real in her tears when she returned to that Bronx school and stood in the classroom of her former teacher. She might have been moved by more than just nostalgia. She might have recognized the version of herself in those students’ faces who didn’t fully trust the teachers who said she would succeed and who had to discover the harsh reality that they were correct.
