Not to be confused with the arguably less funny Cardi B, today’s hilarious L.A. Weekly podcast guest Lardi B had publisher and host Brian Calle laughing before we even hit “record” on Zoom.
Known for both her witty parodies and her original songs, Brian has to ask: How did Lardi B start? Where did the persona come from?
“I was doing an acoustic show with one of my friends in Rockwall, Texas and had a friend come up to me – it was when Bodak Yellow was really, really poppin’, I mean it had only been out for three or four months but it was still at the top of the charts and Cardi B was new and fresh and everyone was freaking out,” Jenn Whitlock aka Lardi B retells. “My friend came up to me and he was like – trying not to hurt my feelings – ‘I know you like to eat and you’re beautiful, but what do you think about remaking this song and making it funny?’ I kind of looked at him and was like, ‘You know what? Fuck it, let’s do it, that actually sounds really fun.’”
“So we wrote it, we did a video, we put it out and it took off from there,” she continues. “Bodak Yellow was my first parody ever.”
“Bodak Jello,” Lardi B’s parody, became an instant hit, with 2,279,343 views and counting on YouTube. With clever lyrics like “this expensive this is Red Robin, need a double booth” and “I need to let all these hoes know that none of they kitchens are safe,” it’s easy to get instantly hooked by her relatable content and delicious videos.
How did the internet receive it?
“I wanna say it was like 50% hate, 50% love in the beginning,” she tells us. “But then it just grew to be more and more and more positivity.”
When she first started, was she nervous that she was going to get in trouble with Cardi’s team or catch heat from Cardi herself?
“No,” Lardi laughs. “I had a blast making it, rewriting the song, and making the music.” True artists, her and her team make their own music for the track and write all their own lyrics.
Quick on the draw, Brian can’t help but notice how quickly she threw together her WAP parody (wings and pizza, obviously) after Cardi’s original released.
“I had never put out a parody so fast in my life,” she tells us. In one day they wrote the song, made it, recorded it. The next day, they made the video and edited it. On the third day, it was released.
What’s one of her favorite lines she’s ever written? “If there’s blue cheese instead of ranch I swear I’m cuttin’ your throat,” she raps. And we feel that.
The child of a musician (her dad played professionally for 20 years), she was surrounded by music from a young age. While her parents noticed her voice and talent early, she was far too shy to perform until she was older. Today, she has no stage fright at all.
Missing live shows, she has found the bright side of 2020: quarantine has given her more time to reflect and create as an artist. What she writes and releases depends on however she feels in the moment – which has pushed her to create more originals than ever before.
Beyond her music, she has become an icon for body positivity and self-love, two very important social topics of today. She has married her love of music, her love of food, and her love of herself into one grand platform that has others learning to embrace and love themselves.
Listen and laugh with us as we learn more about this brilliant artist on the L.A. Weekly podcast: Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Cumulus Los Angeles.
