The rumors have been circulating and now TMZ is confirming that Cardi B is pregnant by her fiancé, Offset, and due in early July 2018. According to the gossip site, the news first surfaced at the time of the Super Bowl in February 2018.
At a related event in Minneapolis where she was performing, a member of her staff let it be known she wasn’t interesting in spending time in the VIP area because she was pregnant and not in the mood to party. Since then, both Cardi and Offset have denied the rumors.
Cardi B has a very busy schedule ahead, including plans to drop her album in April along with an appearance at Coachella and tour dates with Bruno Mars in September.
Within the music industry, pregnancy is often viewed as a career killer. In the 1998 single “To Zion,” Lauryn Hill famously rapped about choosing to keep her son despite being told by people around her it was a mistake.
Even though Hill’s album dropped 20 years ago, there have been very few instances of female rappers performing while pregnant. In 2009, rapper M.I.A.performed while nine months pregnant at the Grammys and recently Miami rapper La Goony Chonga released a visual for her single “No Effort,” marking the first time a rapper was shown as openly pregnant in a video.
Barring any complications, the 25-year old Cardi with the support of family and staff is capable of continuing to work and perform, and in a fair world her having a baby shouldn’t hurt her career any more than her fiancé’s.
Cardi has blazed a lot of trails and we look forward to watching her create a new path for female performers who continue to succeed while bearing children.
