Cardi B Opens Up About Unseating Taylor Swift on the Charts: 'It Felt Like I Was Doing It For The Culture'

Cardi B is on the cover of Billboard‘s 2017 Year In Music issue, out on newsstands now.

Here’s what the 25-year-old “Bodak Yellow” rapper had to say:

On the tireless personal drive behind her breakout year: “”This is my work ethic: I do not want to raise my future kids where I was raised, and I know the only way to do it is working, working, working, working, working. I don’t want to live in a small Bronx apartment. I don’t want to have three kids that got to share one room. I don’t want my kids to go to school and get gang-affiliated. I don’t want to do welfare. I don’t.”

On the superstars she’s joined atop the Hot 100: “Lauryn Hill is like a goddess. For me to be in the same sentence with her, and one day a new female rapper to be in the same sentence with me…”

On ­unseating Taylor Swift‘s “Look What You Made Me Do”: “I really like that song, but it do make me feel good because Taylor Swift is freaking Taylor Swift – [being on top] is what she’s known for, and it felt like I was doing it for the culture.”

On being a role model: “When women come up to me like, ‘I am a freaking senator,’ or, ‘I’m a ­doctor.’ It’s like, ‘Damn, y’all like me? I look up to y’all!’ It’s not that people want to be like me, but some want to say the things I say and can’t, because they’re afraid. I say it for them.”

For more from Cardi, visit Billboard.com.