Petty and distracting, or honest and potentially lucrative?
That's the question plaguing Cardi B's team a month after the rapper took her feud with Nicki Minaj to a whole new level by throwing a shoe at her during a New York Fashion Week party in September.
Cardi has been writing and recording music in recent weeks and sources tell TMZ that some of the "Bodak Yellow" rapper's new material takes aim at Nicki, whom she's accused of criticizing her abilities to be a good mother to 3-month-old daughter Kulture.
The problem, TMZ explains, is that Cardi's team is split on whether or not the tracks that take aim at Nicki should be released or shelved. "We're told her team is divided," TMZ explains. "Some think the Nicki disses should be 86'd. Those people in Cardi's camp feel the lyrics would actually benefit Nicki by putting the spotlight on her."
It's a tough debate because Cardi's team thinks she's actually already proven herself to be more successful and popular than Nicki, so "the best strategy is just ignoring her," TMZ writes.
The problem with taking the high road, however, is that Cardi has always made a point of rapping about her real-life drama and relationships, "so she thinks keeping the [anti-Nicki] lyrics in is the only way to keep it real," TMZ explains.
Nicki has called Cardi's shoe-throwing "so mortifying and so humiliating" and denied Cardi's claims that she's criticized her parenting abilities on social media. "I just want to let the world know that Onika Tanya Maraj would never — has never and will never — speak ill of anyone's child. I am not a clown. That's clown s—," Nicki said last month.
Cardi, however, has made it clear she has no regrets. In an October interview with W Magazine, she explained why she went after Nicki, who was unharmed thanks to her bodyguard (Cardi left with a knot on her head that she got in the resulting melee). "For a while now she's been taking a lot of shots at me. I spoke to her twice before, and we came to an understanding," Cardi said. "But she kept it going."
"I was going to make millions off my Bruno Mars tour, and I sacrificed that to stay with my daughter. I love my daughter," Cardi continued, explaining why she decided to cancel her fall slot on Bruno's tour a few weeks after Kulture's birth.
"I'm a good-a– f—ing mom. So for somebody that don't have a child to like that comment? So many people want to say that party wasn't the time or the place, but I'm not going to catch another artist in the grocery store or down the block."
Meanwhile, Cardi has other things to worry about: On Oct. 1, she was charged with assault and reckless endangerment in New York City, an arrest that stems from an August strip-club brawl that she allegedly instigated, which she's denied.