For New York Magazine’s November 13–26, 2017, issue cover story, Cut senior writer Allison P. Davis talks to chart-busting phenom Cardi B about her strip-club, reality-television, rap-fame fairy tale, how it all came through, and how she actually feels about it. “You be seeing these artists going through their meltdowns and fucking shit, and you be like, Why you doing all of that? You’re famous, you’re a fucking millionaire, why? Bitch, I’m broke, I want to shave my head,” she tells Davis. “Then when you in those shoes, it’s just like, I see why people go crazy. This shit is not what it fucking seems. But I can’t complain.”
The cover image, shot by Hassan Hajjaj, was a matching of energies between photographer and subject. “One of Hassan’s signatures that he uses in all of his work is that he tapes up tapestries and floor mats that he collects from Marrakesh, which is where he’s from,” says New York Magazine’s senior photo editor Roxanne Behr. “He shipped a collection here and he set up a bunch of them. It really was a melding of Hassan’s spirit and energy and eye with Cardi’s energy.”