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BIA’s long-delayed official first album, Bianca, hardly feels like a real debut. The rapper and singer-songwriter has hovered around the industry for more than a decade, from her stint on T.I.’s reality TV series Sisterhood of Hip Hop while being mentored by Pharrell Williams to landing a Top 20 chart hit with Nicki Minaj, “Whole Lotta Money,” in 2021, and releasing two full-lengths, 2021’s For Certain and 2023’s Really Her. Through it all, she’s become a familiar name amid the ongoing renaissance of rap women without quite growing into a singular brand.
In fact, the reason why gossipy music sites have blathered about BIA in recent works isn’t because of Bianca or “We on Go,” a stomping arena chant that the WNBA selected as theme music for its just-concluded WNBA playoffs (and which gets remixed on Bianca as “We on Go II” with A$AP Ferg and Denzel Curry). It’s because of Cardi B, who recently fired a shot at BIA over the latter’s 2024 “Sue Me” diss. (BIA claimed that Cardi B copied her style.) “Name five BIA songs, gun pointing to your head,” raps Cardi B on “Pretty & Petty,” from her chart-topping album Am I the Drama?. “I’m doing you a favor, Epic, run me my bread.” Later, Cardi added on X that she was offered the “Whole Lotta Money” reference track too, and insinuated that BIA relies on ghostwriters.
Cardi B isn’t wrong: regardless of whether Epic Records owes her compensation for drumming up publicity, it’s unlikely folks would be talking about Bianca without the drama she stirred up around it. Mainstream rap nowadays is suffocating from meaningless rivalries, subliminal shots for stans to decode and misinterpret, and redundant talk of who’s really in the streets and who’s snitching. It cheapens the art these musicians make. Women have especially suffered in the noise that ensues whenever one of them manages to earn a hit, only to get slapped down by a “queen” like Cardi B and Nicki Minaj and be reduced to moronic Google search results where “Does she have a boyfriend” and “Is she LGBTQ” get listed at the top. Yes, rap battling is a tradition that dates to the glory years of the art form. But no one remembers that Boogie Down Productions followed their seminal diss “The Bridge Is Over” by gathering a phalanx of New York stars for the consciousness-raising posse cut “Self-Destruction.” Who’s going to take the weight now?
For her part, BIA doesn’t acknowledge her war of words with Cardi B on Bianca, unless one counts “Bad Guy,” where she adopts a guttural, Foxy Brown-like tone and references her Italian and Puerto Rican heritage. “Now you speaking to the Puerto Rican Castellano, take a pic/These hoes get a little money, and make a fist/Frugal bitch,” she growls. For the most part, she flits between sonic styles, underscoring her versatility. “Pray for You,” with Tyler ICU and Khalil Harrison, has a light amapiano pulse. “Hard Way” is an anthemic reggaeton track with Becky G. “Ready Set” rides on a house-y groove. “Birthday Behavior” has an intriguing electro beat, and guest Young Miko comes off nicely with her murmuring Spanglish flow.
BIA is a strong enough rapper to trade Project Pat-styled cadences alongside Key Glock on “Dade,” and a sufficiently talented singer to duet with Ty Dolla $ign on “Crazy” without embarrassing herself. Bianca has too many one-minute-plus cuts that feel more appropriate for a TikTok short video reel than an album, but it’s well-sequenced and offers listeners a range of musical flavors and emotions. Its 16 cuts don’t leave a strong impression. But BIA’s a charismatic talent. One can’t help but root for her while wishing she offered the kind of incandescent thrills — quotable punch lines, a distinct voice, deeply thoughtful lyrics — that could set her apart from the crowd.
Bianca is bookended by two songs that allude to her inability to connect with something bigger than herself. The first track, “October,” finds her riffing melodically about a difficult relationship. “Oh, God, it’s over, I’m colder than October, I don’t feel a thing,” she sings. The final track, “Trifling,” is more bizarre. It begins as a story rap about a phone conversation with the girlfriend of a man she’s dating. Then it concludes with BIA yelling in a frightening voice. “You niggas is so fucking weak, y’all got the audacity to be intimidated by a bad motherfucking queen!” she screams. “’Cause Barack needs a Michelle, bitch! And Bill needed a fucking Hillary, bitch! You niggas want brainless bitches to stroke your motherfucking ego? Well, fuck you, nigga!” It’s an odd way to end an album. Despite the people-pleasing tone of Bianca, there’s clearly an underexplored strain of anger and passion underneath its surface.
“Who said this shit would be simple/When odds are against you trying to reach your potential,” BIA raps on “Awake.” True, the rap game in 2025 is anything but easy.
