Eight songs in 18 minutes, a nine-piece band, and a lyric change on ErrTime that swaps Latto for Kelly Rowland.
Cardi B made her NPR Tiny Desk Concert debut on Monday, October 19, in the NPR offices in Washington, D.C. The rapper ran through eight songs in 18 minutes with a nine-piece band, pulling from Am I the Drama?, her 2025 album, and Invasion of Privacy, her 2018 debut.
She opened with "Hello" from Am I the Drama? and moved into ErrTime, another track from that album. The pace slowed for Man of Your Word, a song about deceit and cheating from a past relationship. By the time Be Careful from Invasion of Privacy arrived, she had had enough of the heavy mood. "Change the vibes," she ordered. The room lightened up as the hits came: Up, a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, led into Ah Ha, then Bodak Yellow. She closed with I Like It, another Hot 100 No. 1, swaying in her latex pants.
During a brief intermission, Cardi B joked about her habits:
"Let me get some water. You know I be smoking cigarettes."
Pitchfork noted she was almost all business, with only brief pauses to shout out her backing musicians and one remark about the lack of Maryland crab cakes in her rider.
A change came on ErrTime. Cardi swapped the shout-out to Latto for one to Kelly Rowland. On Be Careful, she also changed a line about her exes, rapping "And karma for you? Well, you see it!" in place of the original lyric about karma. She split from husband Offset in 2024, and later from NFL star Stefon Diggs in February 2026, after roughly a year of dating.
The Latto swap comes after a 2025 falling out. Leaked audio captured Cardi using a crude term about Latto's nonconfrontational history during a heated phone call with Ice Spice's manager. Cardi publicly apologized, but Latto seemingly was not ready to move past it, and she addressed the situation on her 2026 album Big Mama with the song Gimmie Dat.
Cardi has had a busy October. She surprised fans with Don't Chart, a single on Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album that arrived earlier this month, and Pitchfork describes it as her contribution to the game's soundtrack. Before that she put out Ah Ha, a summer track.
She will be the first artist to ever accept the Global Woman of the Year award at Billboard Canada Women In Music 2026 on November 24.
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