Review: Cardi B is back and has a lot to get off her chest

Out of all the labels Cardi B loves to wear and rap about, “drama queen” has become her favorite — and she wears it like royalty on her latest tour.

For a decade now, the cameras and headlines have followed the braggadocio rapper’s every move, every dig, every partner and every trial, like last year’s televised civil case, in which a jury cleared her of allegations that she attacked a security guard in 2018.

In the beginning of her career, the fast-lipped New Yorker might have found it to be an “invasion of privacy” (the name of her debut album in 2018). But seven years later, when she asks, “Am I the drama” on her latest album, Cardi does so with a wide smirk, knowing full well the answer.

Besides, doesn’t a little drama make for the best performance? That answer — as proven by Cardi’s big theatrics at United Center Saturday night — is a resounding yes.

Her two-hour musical smackdown started off with a literal bang: A chaotic explosion of fireworks set off in such force that it could have rendered the first few rows deaf and blind. “Hello, it’s me, hello I’m back,” Cardi declared in the opening song, dressed in a red-and-black trench coat with a blonde and purple wig like a devilish Cruella out to steal attention.

While the rapper needs no introduction, this was all about reintroduction. After seven long years between albums, and six years between headlining tours, Cardi B is back and she has a lot to get off her chest.

She did so in 37 nonstop songs — from the savage “Pretty and Petty” to the gloating “Money” — all while utilizing the macabre and defiant imagery of “Am I the Drama?” as a backdrop. Often zeroing in on the gaggle of black birds, it was an obvious statement to her detractors to “eat crow.”

Cardi has shared in interviews that the dark and dystopian themes that run through the album’s iconography are symbolic of something that died within her, as she entered into a new dawn of not giving any f---s. As she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, her “cockiness is being reborn again.”

This evolution played out in five interludes sandwiched between the distinctive show acts where video montages carried the story arc. Beginning with a crumbling metropolis akin to the fall of Rome, the imagery soon turned to a display of impenetrable museum statues and Cardi rising above it all, flapping a pair of wings like a phoenix.

At the heart of the Little Miss Drama tour was a celebration of this journey, with Cardi saluting every part of her identity and story: her Bronx roots, her Latina culture and her stripper past.

The latter was recognized with a rotating carousel of stripper poles, in which Cardi and her skilled dancers flaunted their moves to the rapper’s collab songs like “On Dat Money” and “No Limit.” After a hot-and-heavy delivery of “WAP,” the twerking continued as a fan cam panned over the UC, inviting the sold-out crowd to take part in a contest awarding the winner $5,000. The BardiGang came ready to shake their stuff, many of them donning the drama school uniforms that have become a popular code of the tour.

“I feed off your energy!” Cardi declared to pump up the room. “If you give me energy, you activate the b----h.” The crowd happily obliged throughout the night, roaring along to big new numbers like “Up” and “Outside.” But it was Cardi’s Latin-fused 2018 hit “I Like It” (originally featuring J Balvin and Bad Bunny) that stole the show, with everyone on their feet copying the salsa steps of Cardi and her colorful backup crew.

The song was tucked into the fourth act, alongside a cover of “Taki Taki” and “Bodega Baddie” in a total dedication to the Latino community. Like Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show, the backup dancers paraded around flags from Mexico and Central and South American countries while Cardi took a minute to sing a few lines of Selena’s “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom.”

“Shout out to my Latinos in the building!” the rapper shouted to the rafters. Later, she dedicated the show to the “beautiful ladies” in the crowd — “the nine-to-fivers, the college students, the hairstylists. Whatever you are doing, you’re appreciated and you’re enough.”

That’s the thing about Cardi. People can give her labels like “raunchy” and “showoff” and “drama queen,” but feminist should be the first one. Amid all the bravado and spectacle, she’s just doing what the rap boy’s club has been doing all along and, by proxy, has helped elevate women into the space.

Cardi B Set List for March 21, 2026 show at United Center, Chicago

Hello
Magnet
Salute
Check Please
Trophies
Enough (Miami)
Money
Press
Be Careful
Ring
Thru Your Phone
Killin You Hoes
On My Back
Safe
Taki Taki (DJ Snake collab song)
Bongos
Bodega Baddie
I Like It
Please Me (Bruno Mars collab song)
Principal
Pick It Up
Nice Guy
Better Than You
Up
Dead
ErrTime
On Dat Money (Rob49 collab song)
No Limit (G‐Eazy collab song)
Thotiana (Blueface collab song)
Pretty & Petty
WAP
Girls Like You (Maroon 5 collab song)
Finesse (Bruno Mars collab song)
Tomorrow 2 (GloRilla collab song)
Bartier Cardi
Outside
Bodak Yellow