Invasion of Privacy (album)


Invasion of Privacy is the debut studio album by American rapper Cardi B. It was released on April 6, 2018, by Atlantic Records. Primarily a hip hop record, Invasion of Privacy also comprises trap, Latin and R&B. It features production from 30 Roc, Allen Ritter, Andrew Watt, Ayo, Benny Blanco, Boi-1da, Cassius Jay, Cheeze Beatz, Craig Kallman, Cubeatz, Darrale Jones, DJ Mustard, DJ Official, DJ SwanQo, DJ TeeOh, Frank Dukes, Invincible, J. White Did It, Jonathan "Brooklyn Johnny" Descartes, Keyz, Klenard Raphael, Murda Beatz, Matt Allen, Needlz, NES, Nonstop Da Hitman, Scribz Riley, Tainy, and Vinylz, among others. The album features guest appearances by Migos, Chance the Rapper, Kehlani, SZA, 21 Savage, J Balvin, Bad Bunny, and YG.
The album debuted atop the US Billboard 200, earning 255,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, with 103,000 coming from pure album sales. It has been certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It produced five singles—"Bodak Yellow", "Bartier Cardi" featuring 21 Savage, "Be Careful", "I Like It" with Bad Bunny and J Balvin, and "Ring" featuring Kehlani. "Bodak Yellow" and "I Like It" have both reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first female rapper to achieve multiple chart-toppers. Upon release, the album set multiple streaming records, while she became the first female artist to chart thirteen songs simultaneously on the Hot 100. She also became the first female artist to have all tracks from an album certified gold or higher by the RIAA. It was the top female rap album of the 2010s, according to the Billboard 200 decade-end chart. It became the longest-charting debut album by a female rapper on the Billboard 200, and the most-streamed album by a female rapper on Spotify.
Invasion of Privacy was met with critical acclaim. A number of music publications included it among their lists of best albums of the year, with Rolling Stone and Time listing it at number one. Several publications ranked it among the best albums of the 2010s as well, with Rolling Stone placing it 34th. Among its accolades, it won Best Rap Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, with Cardi B becoming the first female rapper to win the category as a solo artist. It was also nominated for Album of the Year, with "I Like It" being nominated for Record of the Year and "Be Careful" for Best Rap Performance. It became the first female rap album in fifteen years to be nominated for Album of the Year. "Bodak Yellow" was nominated for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for the previous ceremony. At the 2019 BET Awards, Invasion of Privacy won the BET Award for Album of the Year.
The album was made available for streaming and digital download on April 5, 2018, but was not available on any physical format upon its initial release. The album was eventually released on vinyl on December 7, 2018, and its CD release—initially scheduled for September 28, 2018—was released on February 22, 2019.

Background

Prior to the release of the album, "Bodak Yellow" reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, while several collaborations also reached the top 10. Those singles set multiple chart records, including making her the first female rapper to land her first three entries in the top 10 of the Hot 100, and the first female artist to achieve the same on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. With her collaboration with Bruno Mars, "Finesse ", she became the first woman to have five top 10 singles simultaneously on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. In March 2018, Cardi announced at the iHeartRadio Music Awards that the album will be released in April. She announced the release date and the title posting the album artwork in her social media pages.

Recording and production

Invasion of Privacy was recorded from 2017 until early 2018. It features production from 30 Roc, Allen Ritter, Andrew Watt, Ayo, Benny Blanco, Boi-1da, Cassius Jay, Cheeze Beatz, Craig Kallman, Cubeatz, DJ Mustard, DJ Official, DJ SwanQo, Frank Dukes, Invincible, J. White, Keyz, Klenard Raphael, Murda Beatz, Matt Allen, Needlz, NES, Nonstop Da Hitman, Scribz Riley, Tainy and Vinylz, among others.

Music and lyrics

Primarily a hip hop album, Invasion of Privacy also comprises trap, Latin music and R&B, while its lyrical themes include fame, success, wealth, sex, and feminism, as well as Cardi B's past. The album opens with "Get Up 10", which speaks about Cardi B's rise to fame. It is followed by a trap song "Drip", which features a guest appearance by Migos, and speaks about jewelry, wealth, and Cardi B and Migos' status. The third track "Bickenhead" has a feminist theme; its title refers to women who work hard for money.
A hip hop and trap song "Bodak Yellow" follows, on which Cardi B confronts her enemies and makes statements such as "I don't dance now, I make money moves", referring to her past, as she used to work as a stripper before rising to fame. On the fourth track "Be Careful", Cardi B performs the hook using a softly sung vocal style over a "laidback" beat. The song also comprises "flickering" hi-hats and "slick" synths. Lyrically, "Be Careful" is a song about infidelity, where the protagonist warns her cheating partner and asks him to treat her better. During an interview, Cardi B stated that she drew inspiration from past relationships, while denying that the song was directed at her fiancé Offset.
The sixth track "Best Life" features a guest appearance by Chance the Rapper; the lyrics discuss the power of God and positive thinking. It's followed by "I Like It", a bilingual latin trap song featuring singers Bad Bunny and J Balvin. Invasion of Privacy also contains two R&B mid-tempo songs–"Ring" and "Thru Your Phone"–which both lyrically show Cardi B's emotional vulnerability.
"Ring" is followed by three hip hop and trap songs: "Money Bag", "Bartier Cardi", and "She Bad". On "Bartier Cardi", Cardi B raps about her attraction to diamonds, sports cars and sex, while 21 Savage raps about a similar theme from a male perspective.

Release and promotion

Prior to the release of Invasion of Privacy, Cardi B promoted its lead single "Bodak Yellow" in several live performances, including at the BET Awards 2017 afterparty on June 25, 2017, during the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards pre-show on August 27, at the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards on October 6, and on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on October 18.
While accepting her iHeartRadio Music Award for Best New Artist at the 2018 iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 11, 2018, Cardi B revealed that Invasion of Privacy would be released in April 2018. On March 26, 2018, she revealed both the official artwork and title for the album. The album was made available for streaming on April 5, 2018 through Atlantic Records, and was released for digital download worldwide the following day.
On April 7, 2018, Cardi B performed the first three singles on Saturday Night Live. On April 9, she co-hosted The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, becoming the first person ever to co-host the show. Cardi B also performed during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 15 and April 20, 2018. She also performed at the Broccoli City Festival 2018 on April 28, 2018; she was also supposed to perform at the Wireless Festival in July, however, the performance was cancelled due to her pregnancy. Her summer tour in support of the album, which would run from May 4 until July 29, 2018 in the United States, Norway and Ireland, and all performances until September were also cancelled.
Cardi B was also originally scheduled to be the opening act on Bruno Mars's 24K Magic World Tour in North America during September and October 2018, however, she withdrew as she just had her baby, Kulture.

Singles

The album's lead single, "Bodak Yellow", was released on June 16, 2017. It topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and was certified nonuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, becoming the highest-certified single by a female rapper.
"Bartier Cardi" was released on December 22, 2017 as the second single and features American rapper 21 Savage. It peaked at number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
"Be Careful" was released as the third single on March 30, 2018. It peaked at number 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
"Drip" featuring Migos was released to Australian radio as the fourth single on the album on April 6, 2018, despite being a promotional single in selected territories. It peaked at number 21 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The song has been certified platinum by the RIAA.
"I Like It", with Bad Bunny and J Balvin, debuted at number eight on the Hot 100 following the album's release, was distributed to urban contemporary and contemporary hit radio as the album's fifth single on May 25, 2018. Several days later, the song's music video premiered on Cardi B's YouTube channel. After being released as a single, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making Cardi the first female rapper with multiple number one singles on the chart's history. The single has been certified octuple platinum by the RIAA.
"Ring", featuring Kehlani, impacted US urban contemporary radio on August 28, 2018, as the sixth single. Previously, it had entered at number 28 on the Hot 100 as an album track following the album's release. The single has been certified double platinum by the RIAA.

Critical reception

Invasion of Privacy received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 84, based on 24 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Ben Beaumont-Thomas of The Guardian gave Invasion of Privacy and called it "a magnificent debut that fuses vulnerability, sexual voraciousness, paranoia, and party music" and wrote that the album "shows the rapper is capable of far more than punchy put-downs". For Exclaim!, Erin Lowers scored the album a 9 out of 10, noting that her softer singles add "a new dimension" to her artistry, and adding that the release "feels like her 'Lemonade' moment, one that magnifies her insecurities for public consumption."
Maeve McDermott of USA Today gave the album another positive review, stating that "at 13 tracks, Invasion of Privacy isn't overstuffed with endless filler tracks like many releases by Cardi's rap peers. Leave it to Cardi, marketing queen, to know that fans get exhausted when performers overstay their welcome in attempts to rack up streaming numbers. The hip hop star likely doesn't have to worry about that, considering her album seems destined for charts success, if "Bodak Yellow"'s record-breaking last year was any indication." Jem Aswad of Variety called it "one of the most powerful debuts of this millennium" and praised its opening number "Get Up 10" as an "empowering opening autobiographical testimonial," though he also felt "in a couple of cases the featured artists run off with the song so completely that it feels like Cardi is a guest on her own album." Eleanor Halls of GQ wrote: "Invasion of Privacy proves "Bodak Yellow" was far from a summer one-hit wonder. These money moves are played for the long game."
Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone described the album as "lavishly emotional, intimately personal, wildly funny," and concluded "Invasion proves she's here to stay." For Pitchfork, Sheldon Pearce awarded the album "Best New Music", writing that "Cardi B's remarkable debut places her, without a doubt, in the pantheon of great rappers. It is both brazen and vulnerable, filled with wild amounts of personality, style, and craft". Jon Caramanica of The New York Times noted, "she is more versatile than most rappers or pop stars of any stripe," adding, " is also, notably, a hip-hop album that doesn't sound like any of its temporal peers."
Chris Richards of The Washington Post commented: "She seems to be telling one long story here — about self-empowerment, beating the odds, transcendence — but the force of Cardi's narrative resides in the sound of her voice as much as it does in her words. You can hear it during the album's grand finale, "I Do," when she asks, "My little 15 minutes lasted long as hell, huh?" What a victory speech. Close your eyes and you might feel the confetti falling on your shoulders, too." Carrie Battan of The New Yorker complimented Invasion of Privacy by saying " is as studious as it is bombastic."
Time magazine named Invasion of Privacy the best album of 2018, stating, "Cardi's debut doesn't just earn her a seat at hip-hop's table—it marks her as a singular voice." In 2019, NME stated the album secured "her crown as the new Queen of Rap."

Accolades

A number of music publications included Invasion of Privacy among their best-albums-of-the-year top 10, with Rolling Stone and Time listing it at number one. In 2019, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork listed the album as one of the greatest albums of the decade, placing it at number 34 and 73, respectively.
All genres
Hip-hop and rap
Pop
All-genres

Commercial performance

Invasion of Privacy was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America the day of its release due to a technicality that incorporates the track-equivalent units moved by previously released singles "Bodak Yellow" and "Bartier Cardi". It was certified double platinum on October 3, 2018. All thirteen tracks have been certified gold or higher by the RIAA, making her the first female artist to achieve such feat, and third overall.
On April 13, 2018, Apple Music announced that Invasion of Privacy set a new record for the most streamed album by a female artist in a single week with over a hundred million streams. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, moving 255,000 album-equivalent units with 103,000 coming from pure album sales in its first week. It achieved the largest on-demand audio streaming week ever for an album by a woman with 202.6 million streams. At the time of its release, it became the second biggest first-week sales of 2018, after Justin Timberlake's Man of the Woods. Cardi B became the fifth female rapper to top the chart.
On the US Billboard Hot 100 chart dated April 21, Cardi B listed 13 songs, with 12 of them being songs from Invasion of Privacy, thus surpassing Beyoncé for the most simultaneous songs on the chart by a solo female artist. The record was later broken by Billie Eilish in 2019 when 12 tracks from her album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and two additional singles charted on the Hot 100 in a single week. In its second week, the album fell to number two on the chart, earning an additional 129,000 units, dropping forty-nine percent from the first week. In its third week, the album remained at number two with over 91,000 units, dropping thirty percent from the previous week. It has spent twenty one consecutive weeks within the top ten on the chart, which is the most weeks for a female rap album— including eight non-consecutive weeks within the top five. It also spent twenty two consecutive weeks within the top ten on the Top R&B/Hip Hop chart. As of July 6, 2018, Invasion of Privacy is the best-performing female album of 2018 and the third overall in the United States. The album remained the largest female debut of 2018 in the country until September 2018, with the release of Carrie Underwood's Cry Pretty. As of January 2019, the album has earned 2,060,000 album-equivalent units, including 222,000 for pure album sales, in the United States. In December 2019, it became the most-streamed album by a female rapper ever in Spotify. In January 2020, it became the longest-charting debut album by a female rapper on the Billboard 200, surpassing Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Invasion of Privacy also debuted atop the Canadian Albums Chart, moving 12,000 album-equivalent units. It was certified Platinum by Music Canada for shipments of 80,000 copies. The album was a commercial success internationally as well, peaking within the top ten on charts in Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Flanders, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
It was the third most streamed album of 2018 in Apple Music globally, being the highest for a female artist. It was the tenth most streamed album in Canada on the streaming service. It was also the fifth most streamed album in that platform ever, being the highest for a female artist. In Spotify, it was the fourth most streamed album of the year in the United States, also being the highest for a female artist, with Cardi being the most streamed female artist. In 2020, Spotify's RapCaviar announced Cardi B and Drake as the top performers on the playlist.

Influence

Spin staff credited the album for opening "the table to a new generation of pop artists remaking American music in their own image and accents. And Cardi will remain front-and-center." The magazine further added that Invasion of Privacy is an "invitation into world of blood, sweat, and tears... it's a rebuke to much of what passes for chart-focused rap, where the artist's persona is crafted for maximum exposure. Instead, Cardi B recognized that POC artists no longer need to pander or soften themselves in order to become household names." In 2019, Consequence of Sound editors wrote "her authenticity and charisma are constants that reinforce her standing as one of the most formidable hip-hop artists of the decade."

Track listing

Credits adapted from Tidal.
Notes
Sample credits
Credits adapted from Tidal.
Performance
Instrumentation
Production
Technical
Miscellaneous
Artwork & Marketing

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Australian Albums 38
Canadian Albums 35
New Zealand Albums 28
US Billboard 20019
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums 12

Decade-end charts

Certifications

Release history