Cardi B’s Nails: Contagion and the Excess of Gender, Race and Commodity

Abstract

On her Instagram account, rapper Cardi B frequently shares images and videos of her manicures, which are spectacular for both their artistry and their prohibitive length. As a woman of colour, Cardi’s manicure can signal a certain economic arrival; her artificial nails are an indisputable signifier of disposable income used for personal services. Cardi B’s manicure counters historical narratives of subordination that situate women of colour at the lowest strata of society, unworthy or economically unable to adorn themselves. However, in Black Looks (2015), bell hooks insists that a triple-threat of capitalism, white supremacism and sexism still impose a difficult burden on black women and their power of self-representation. The rapper’s unrestrained fashion and self-presentation can be read as replaying a script of “racialized and sexualized inscribed forms of power” (Butler and Athanasiou. Dispossession. The Performative in the Political. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013, 31) that black women have been assigned since the colonial nineteenth century. These are not the delicate hands of the idle rich, nor the functional hands of the working poor; rather they symbolize something in between—the hard-working rich. In this light, Cardi’s manicure is a personally affirming act that does not overpower her subjectivity. Further, this aesthetic practice of self-care, which originated in Black culture, has seemingly transformed dominant codes of female self-adornment, by crossing over racialized and class practices, to become a sign of distinction belying its humble origins.