When You Think Of Cardi B As Lesley Gore, It’s All Put In Perspective

“Bodak Yellow’s” roots are in “You Don’t Own Me” and other 60s hits.

Public Enemy’s Chuck D refers to rap music as the “CNN that black people never had.” However, in the midst of a run wherein now politically charged artists like Kendrick Lamar can’t stick at number one, but instead pop ditty and arguable “one-plus” hit wonders Rae Sremmurd, Migos, and now Cardi B have had extended runs at the top of the Billboard pop charts, maybe it’s time to instead look at current pop charting rap and say that the genre is at the point where it’s not CNN, but rather the “Snapchat feed that everyone — black people included — loves.” In this being the case, it’s probably best to not stare at this rap through the lens of Chuck D’s “black CNN,” but instead through the eyes of 1963, another time wherein pop ditties ruled the world. In contemplating that we have yet to hear of any word of a follow up to Cardi’s “Bodak Yellow,” it’s in thinking of Lesley Gore, 1963’s loudest, brashest, and ultimately most iconic and atypical “one-hit wonder” female voice, that we contemplate how Cardi B could hopefully be on the cusp of so much more.