Ice Spice Praises Cardi B For Giving Female Rappers “Hope”

Key Takeaways:

• Ice Spice credited Cardi B with giving women in rap “hope” and making the genre feel more accessible to women.
• She discussed her creative chemistry with Nicki Minaj and why she ultimately chose not to sign with her label.
• Ice explained that leaked texts about Nicki came during a moment of frustration over contract negotiations.

Ice Spice is a girl’s girl. On Tuesday (Sept. 15), the “Did It First” rapper stopped by “Baby, This is Keke Palmer,” where she praised Cardi B for giving women in rap “hope.”

“I feel like Cardi B definitely brought back that hope [that] girls could rap, because for a long time, Nicki [Minaj] seemed so unattainable,” Ice Spice told the show’s eponymous host. “You know, that’s part of the lore of why I was so obsessed because I’m like, ‘Only she could do it.’”

Although the internet loves to pit her against both, Ice Spice has technically collaborated with Minaj and Cardi. She teamed up with the former on 2023’s “Princess Diana (Remix)” and again on “Barbie World” the following year. Meanwhile, Cardi hopped on a remix of the Y2K! artist’s “Munch (Feelin’ U)” but ultimately didn’t release it because she didn’t love how she sounded.

Being co-signed by Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice said, felt “crazy, crazy, crazy.” She added, “I always wanted that to be the case, but when it happens, you’re like, ‘Whoa, is this real life?’ Two records with her, I was gassed. Of course, I still am.”

On why she didn’t sign to Minaj’s Heavy On It Records, Ice explained, “I was already signed when she was trying to sign me, so I think that’s where the hiccups were. It was really no room anymore, at that point, to make a new deal.”

Their relationship appeared to hit a snag last year when Baby Storme — who claimed to be Ice Spice’s best friend — leaked screenshots of the “Deli” rapper allegedly calling Minaj “ungrateful and delusional.” Later, in her Rolling Stone cover story, Ice admitted the texts came “in a moment of frustration around contract negotiations” and that she “could have [chosen] different words.”

“Regardless of how I felt in that moment, [Nicki] is still somebody I respect as an artist, and I’m always going to admire everything she’s done for me and the culture,” the artist added.