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Could Cardi B and Blac Chyna have the record deals, reality shows and overall success that they’ve obtained in the mainstream as former strippers turned rapper and pop-culture personality, had it not been for Amber Rose?
The question comes to mind following an interview Rose did on friend and radio personality Peter Rosenberg’s Complex show, Open Late. During their conversation, 25-year-old Cardi B was mentioned because of her similarities to the 34-year-old. They both have similar upbringings in big cities like the Bronx and Philly (I don’t like to say “the ‘hood”), and came straight into the spotlight from the strip club. Rosenberg said that people like Rose and Cardi were ushering in a modern-day version of feminism. They’re both not going to let you even attempt to slut shame them, because they embrace the labels people attempt to put on them. Rose has her annual SlutWalk in Los Angeles and Cardi just recently declared, “I’m a motherf–king nasty a– freak a– b—h.”
Mentioning these similarities, Rose agreed that they were cut from the same cloth. She even went as far as to say that the barrage of criticism she received when she stepped on the scene as Kanye West’s former stripper girlfriend, and continued to receive after they broke up and she dated other men while hustling and building opportunities for herself, made it easier for people like Chyna and Cardi to enter into the mainstream. It was no longer uncommon for dancers to show and prove they could do so much more than, well, dance.
“I mean, any woman especially that could come up the way [Cardi] did and I did and [Blac] Chyna, it’s dope to see that,” Rose said. “It’s dope to see people embrace it, because when I came out, they didn’t embrace me very well. But I came out before Chyna and Cardi B. I’m happy that I took the punches and I continued to flourish, so they really don’t have to.”
I think with Cardi’s personality, it’s likely that she would have still been able to achieve a level of fame, and just because she has doesn’t mean the sexist insults have ceased completely. But it is true that Rose was one of the first stripper-turned-renaissance women out here, and her decision to embrace Chyna, for example, definitely helped the former Magic City dancer get far in the public eye. They may not need to pay homage to her like that, but there is some truth to the idea that had she not been able to take the sexist insults thrown her way all this time, and spoke up for women unfairly taunted because of their past, the public may not have been as open to the two ladies who reinvented themselves after her.
Check out her chat with Rosenberg at the 9:30 mark below:
