After Nicki Minaj said that the only reason Cardi B was famous was because of sympathy and payola, the latter term started to trend because not everyone knew what it meant.

Quickly becoming a trending topic on Twitter with over 23,000 mentions, Cardi B was slammed by Nicki Minaj on Beat 1’s Queen Radio show, as reported by Newsweek.

This comes after Cardi B and Nicki Minaj had a fight at New York Fashion Week during which the I Like It rapper claimed the Barbie Dreams hitmaker had spoken about her daughter Kulture. But what is payola?

Nicki Minaj arrives at the Harperís Bazaar ICONS Party in New York ahead of fight with Cardi B

Cardi B and Nicki Minaj beef

The feud between the two rap queens resulted in an explosive altercation at New York Fashion Week after over a year of anger that has been simmering under the surface, according to People.

A beef between Nicki and Cardi first emerged in March 2017 when Minaj ‘liked’ a fan’s Instagram comment that dismissed the Invasion of Privacy rapper’s verses as ‘Dumb a*** bars.’ However, fans were quick to realise that this diss may have been faked.

Months later, while Katy Perry took aim at Taylor Swift on Swish Swish, Nicki Minaj also seemed to express some shade.

In her verse, Minaj rapped: ‘Silly rap beefs just get me more checks / My life is a movie, I’m never off set / Me and my amigos (no, not Offset),’ and some speculated that Cardi B may have not been best pleased with the mention of her man.

Billboard reported that after the release, Cardi B took to Instagram Live to vent about the rappers becoming rivals, but did not mention any names.

‘I hate this s***, I really, really do. A b**** like me, I was happier when I was macking in the hood. This s*** right here is so fake. When I used to be a regular b**** from the Bronx — a hood b**** — when somebody used to be fake to me it was cool because I could approach a b**** and punch her right in her closure…’

She continued: ‘Now that I’m in the industry, you don’t work like that, just have to watch s*** go, watch s*** go. You gotta see people play you and just say nothing like a d*** . That s*** is so wack my n**** like that s*** be breaking my heart because the people, your idols, become rivals.’

Despite this, in July 2017, Nicki was spotted dancing to Cardi’s song Bodak Yellow but a month later, when she joined Offset and 21 Savage on London on da Track’s latest release No Flag, she was encouraged to address her enemies.

According to XXL, London said that he had told the rapper that the track would be ‘perfect for you to be able to explain what you’re going through. If you want to go at someone or talk about somebody, this the perfect song to do it on. She said I was right.’

The Queens rapper opened up her verse with: ‘Lil’ b**** I heard these labels tryna make another me / Everything you getting little h** is cause of me.’ However, Nicki later said that she was not discussing Cardi B in No Flag.

In the same month, Cardi took time to unleash an attack at an unnamed woman while performing at the MoMa PS1 Warm Up event. She said: ‘You know this b****. She never f***ing liked me and now, all of a sudden, she wants to be friends with me. No, b****. I still don’t like you b****.’

Following this, Cardi slammed someone on G-Eazy’s No Limit before revealing that it was not Nicki who she took aim at on the track, but in fact some women from her old neighbourhood.

When Cardi B earned her first Billboard Hot 100 number one for Bodak Yellow, Nicki Minaj congratulated her with a tweet, that read: ‘Congratulations to a fellow NEW YAWKA on a RECORD BREAKING achievement. Bardi, this is the only thing that matters!!! Enjoy it.’

The duo then joined for Migos’s Motor Sport, which shocked some fans, but when it was released, Joe Budden revealed that Kanye West may be the executive producer for the trio’s upcoming album Culture II.

‘I think that Kanye suggested to Migos to put Nicki on this song. I do not think that Migos or anybody stepped to Nicki and said, “We have a record featuring Migos and Cardi and we would like you to get on it.” I don’t believe that happened,’ he said.

In April 2018, speaking to Zane Lowe, Nicki addressed beef rumours again and said her songs were not directed at Cardi B, but the drama surrounding Motor Sport had affected her.

‘Y’all all still jumped around that just to paint Nicki as the bad person so that you could play the victim. That really, really hurt me.

‘I really, fully supported her and up until this recent interview I did, I had never seen her show me genuine love in an interview and I can imagine how many girls wish they could’ve been on a song with Nicki Minaj.’

Cardi B also said in an interview with Ebro Darden that there was no bad blood between herself and Minaj. ‘I just feel like it’s really internet-made-up. I really feel like fans and people, they really want to see that happened, because it’s really entertaining to see people beef.

‘It’s entertaining. Like, I ain’t gonna front, when Nicki and Remy [Ma] was beefing, everyone was tuning and asking, ‘What’s next? What’s next?’…But I don’t really have the time for that. If you not f***ing my man, or if you’re not taking my money from me, if you’re not stopping my money, then I don’t really give a f*** about you.’

However, everything changed when Ebro was invited on to her new show Queen Radio and when the Beats 1 host brought up the feud with Cardi, she said: ‘Can we please move on?

‘I didn’t know Cardi and I had an issue. To me, she may have taken an issue with things that I’ve said, but I’m not going to bite my tongue…You gotta have thick skin. People talk s*** about me all the time. I don’t go around and tell people to stop posting me because I see one bad thing about myself.’

She continued: ‘You can’t be expected to be liked and loved and praised all the f***ing time. Give me a break. You coming into the wrong game if you want people to kiss your ass and suck your d*** all day, my n****. Like, come on.’

This did not go down well with Cardi B, who took to Twitter to reveal she had been blocked by an unnamed person and fans considered that she may have been talking about Nicki.

However, months later, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj reported exchanged words at a Harper’s Bazaar event at this year’s New York Fashion Week, with the I Like It rapper getting into a physical altercation after having thrown a shoe at Rah Ali, a member of Nicki’s entourage.

Cardi B and Nicki Minaj fight

Cardi B seemingly declared war on Nicki Minaj after the pair got into a physical fight at a New York Fashion Week party which ended with the Bodak Yellow rapper throwing a shoe at the other rapper.

After the brawl, Cardi took to Instagram to share a note that said: ‘I’ve let a lot of s**t slide!’, and went on to say that Minaj had made comments about her baby daughter Kulture and claimed remarks had been made about her abilities as a mother.

A video posted by designer Daniel Jonas showed Cardi being escorted away from Minaj shouting ‘Let them say something about my daughter again, let them say something about my daughter again.’ Later, Nicki was seen unbothered and would not be pressing charges.

Cardi B, with a bump on her forehead, leaves after an altercation at the Harper’s Bazaar party

Cosmopolitan reported that the Anaconda rapper was taking a photo when Cardi B walked past and deliberately stepped on her dress, causing it to rip and resulted in the I Like It rapper throwing her shoe.

However, TMZ revealed that the brawl had unfolded after Cardi B had approached Nicki’s table and said: ‘Let me tell you something’ before discussing lies Minaj had allegedly been spreading.

A source told Page Six: ‘It was bad. They were separated by security, but Cardi was still trying to get at her. She took off a giant red shoe and threw it at Nicki – who was being blocked up against a wall by huge security guard.’

Another source said that Cardi instigated the fight, which led to her dress being ripped down the back, exposing her buttocks and another claimed that both stars’ entourages got involved in the mayhem.

‘Cardi’s standing there with her dress ripped and underwear showing and yelling with a bunch of guys holding her back,’ the source said.

Ahead of the release of Barbie Dreams, Nicki Minaj broke her silence about the fight with Cardi B and said that she was ‘mortified’ by the altercation and was now embarrassed by how they ‘made theirselves look.’

Speaking on Beats 1, Nicki said: ‘The other night I was a part of something so mortifying, so humiliating to go through in front of upper echelon people – it’s not about black or white – people who have their lives together.’

In another interview, she added: ‘I was mortified … I could not believe how humiliated I felt …. how we – and I use the term “we” loosely – made ourselves look. I would never discuss anyone’s child. It’s so sad for someone to pin that on me.

‘I would never talk about anyone’s child’s or parenting, I don’t give a s***. It’s so crazy to me that people always need to make Onika the bad guy. if you’re right in whatever you’re doing, you don’t ever have to make someone into the bad guy.

‘You know I didn’t say or never did talk about anyone’s child … I am not a clown, that’s clown s***. The other thing that is clown s*** is telling the world that they did s*** because you look dumb.’

Cardi B attends Tom Ford show at the Park Avenue Armory during New York Fashion Week

Following this, Nicki also appeared on Queen Radio: ‘You put your hands on certain people you gonna die. PERIOD. And y’all sitting here making this s*** a joke? I’m not the b***es in the strip club and I’m not a b*** on a reality show. My money is very f***ing long.’

She also went on to claim that Cardi B’s career had been built off ‘sympathy and payola’, as reported by Hot New Hip Hop and is expected to result in backlash from the rapper.

Payola meaning

After Nicki Minaj bashed Cardi B on her Beat 1 radio show, Dictionary.com provided a definition for the word ‘payola’ after the term quickly became a top-trending Twitter topic with more than 23,000 mentions.

‘Payola: A secret or private payment in return for the promotion of a product, service, etc., through the abuse of one’s position, influence, or facilities,’ they tweeted.