The primary time I meet Cardi B and Offset, it’s during Art Basel. We’re in a cabana atop Pharrell Williams’s Goodtime Hotel in Miami Beach for the launch of Cardi’s newest business enterprise, Whipshots. I make small talk while hoping to shut the deal on the ESSENCE cover offer we prolonged a month prior. As Cardi lets Offset in on the news that we would like to feature their family as the celebrities of our anniversary issue, he replies with a smile and an off-the-cuff “Let’s do it.”

It should be just shy of three months before I see the couple again. Cover locked in, they graciously allow me into their Beverly Hills home for a joint interview. Standing on their doorstep, I like the spiral staircase I can see through the massive window within the entryway. I recognize it from an image on Cardi’s Instagram. Moments later I’m sitting on a brown sectional across from Cardi herself, within the family room of the luxurious multilevel home, my voice recorder and a laundry list of questions queued up. But Offset isn’t there. He’s somewhere boarding a plane to do a show. “Before this interview, I hadn’t seen her in like seven days,” the Migos rapper tells me five days later, once we all finally reunite of their sprawling Latest Jersey mansion. Exhausted from attempting to sustain with their ever-changing schedule for just a number of weeks, I’m wondering how they do it.

Cardi B, 29, and Offset, 30, aren’t just mega-successful music superstars in their very own right. They’re husband and wife, and fogeys to their 3-year-old daughter Kulture and 7-month-old son Wave. Offset can also be a father to a few older children from previous relationships: daughter Kalea, 7, and sons Jordan, 12, and Kody, also 7. It was Cardi who asked on a Zoom call whether she could refer to our editorial and artistic team, woman to woman, about the potential for including her stepchildren in our photo shoot. While she doesn’t need to disturb the relationships she has with the opposite moms of Offset’s children, greater than anything, she doesn’t want any of his kids to feel unnoticed.

“After we got married, that’s after I first met his kids,” Cardi says during our sit-down interview. “I all the time wanted them to like me, they usually really do. They tell me that. I feel it, and

I hope that we all the time have a fantastic relationship.”

Cardi and Offset knew concerning the realities of mixing families long before they’d to navigate those waters themselves. “I actually have two brothers, and we now have three different dads,” Offset says. “I never heard of a half-brother—those are my brothers.”

While Cardi and her sister Hennessy have the identical mother and father, she has a further six siblings from her father’s previous relationship. That family dynamic shaped Cardi’s desire for all of Offset’s kids to forge a detailed bond. The graciousness of that attitude isn’t lost on the daddy of 5.

“It’s a blessing to find a way to have all of them together, and to have a wife who’s open and treats them as in the event that they’re her kids,” he says. “It could possibly be a difficulty, but I don’t should undergo that, and that’s beautiful.”

Cardi (née Belcalis Almánzar) and Offset (née Kiari Cephus) met for the primary time in January of 2017. After sliding into the DMs of one in every of Cardi’s friends to let her know he was involved in the budding rapper, Offset invited Cardi to a “Bad and Boujee” ­dinner he was hosting, to have a good time his rap group’s Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping single of the identical name.

“When my friend told me that he was attempting to holler at me, I used to be like, ‘I’m not attempting to cope with no industry rappers, because I already know what sort of time they’re on,” Cardi candidly admits. “I used to be scared. I’m a relationship girl.”

Though she accepted the dinner invitation and even gave Offset her number after he piqued her interest, she was a bit more hesitant about agreeing to go on a primary date—to Super Bowl LI, no less. Cardi, who on the time was 4 months away from dropping her career-defining debut-album single “Bodak Yellow,” was attempting to protect not only her heart but her image. Before agreeing to the extravagant date, she  had the friend Offset had previously messaged refer to him about her concerns. “I said, ‘I don’t need to be seen in public with a rapper if he’s not serious about me,’” Cardi explains. “It might be embarrassing to go on a date with a man, and my profession is just taking off,  after which the subsequent day he’s not into me anymore. I might’ve been crushed.”

While Cardi was anxious about public opinion, Offset was focused on making a superb impression. “I used to be pondering, Let me go big, man,” he says of securing prime time seats for one in every of the largest sporting events. “It was a vibe.” Fortunately, the great vibes continued because the pair got to know one another higher—though Cardi notes, “The sleek sailing wasn’t that smooth to start with.”

“I had just a little luggage,” Offset admits before Cardi jumps in. “And I needed to unpack it,” she says.

On September 20, 2017, Offset and Cardi made the connection official after they got married within the bedroom of his Atlanta home, on what was something of a dare. “We were making out and he was like, ‘You’re going to have my baby in the future,’ and I used to be like, ‘We ain’t having no baby. You’ve got to marry me,’ and he was like, ‘Alright, let’s get married,’” Cardi recalls.

The moment of passion took a left turn when the couple got into an argument—one which Bronx-bred Cardi thought would mean the tip of their relationship. So she decided to check Offset’s sincerity. “I used to be like, ‘Let’s just get married then. You said you desired to marry me.’ And we did.”

Seven months after saying “I do,” Cardi announced during an April 2018 performance on Saturday Night Live that she and Offset were expecting their first child together. Immediately, she felt pressure to take care of her status as not only the most popular female rapper within the industry but the largest emcee, period.

“I used to be really nervous because everybody around me was nervous,” she says. “Individuals who work within the industry said that nothing like this had really happened before, when any individual was at the peak of their profession they usually got pregnant.”

Cardi leaned on her recent husband during that point of uncertainty. “He kept telling me, ‘Trust me. It’s going to be alright. You’re huge. Everybody loves you. Persons are going to grasp.’ And I just kept telling myself, I actually have to place out my album before I get big and I can’t do these music videos. I can’t let everybody within the industry that believes in me down.”

It wasn’t just Offset’s words that provided comfort during that first pregnancy, Cardi says—it was also the instance he’d set as a dad. “After I first got pregnant, plenty of people was once on some ‘You’re a fourth baby mom’ sh-t. But after I had my baby, I felt like things were going to be alright,  because I do know the sort of man that he’s along with his kids. It’s hard for me to elucidate, but I see how much he loves his kids and the way passionate he’s about his kids, and I really like that.”

Offset understood Cardi’s fears, as  he had his own when he first became a father on the age of 17. “I used to be scared because I used to be a child,” he recalls. “I used to be still living with my mama.”

After his first son, Jordan, was born, Offset welcomed his second child, Kody, when he was 23. By that point, his rap group Migos had already dropped popular singles “Versace” and “Fight Night.” “I used to be in a greater space,” Offset says. “I used to be on. I used to be capable of do way greater than with my first.”

It’s Kody, the pair says, who’s most like his Grammy Award–nominated pops. It’s not simply because he, too, has a superbly lined-up set of locs, aspires to be a rapper and can randomly ask his dad to call a music engineer to record him spitting lyrics—a request Offset commonly obliges. It’s also his easygoing demeanor. Throughout the photo shoot for this story, he doesn’t utter a single criticism once we ask him to pose for hours, not even to whine as he fights off sleep in the course of the last shot of the night. There’s an undeniable cool about him, which is identical word Cardi and Offset use to explain Jordan. “He’s quiet and observant, and that’s a side that Offset definitely has, too,” Cardi says of her husband’s firstborn. “They’re being attentive, they usually’re analyzing all the pieces.”

Offset’s third child, Kalea, was born lower than three weeks after Kody. On set, she’s a natural, posing in Richard Quinn and Lillie Couture as if she were born with a modeling contract in her hand. Yet she’s as sweet-spirited as she is aware of her angles, and it’s clear Cardi adores her as much as she does her birth daughter, whom she gushes over. “Because the day she got here out, she was so gorgeous,” Cardi says of Kulture. “She’s like a breath of fresh air.”

On the point of turning 4, Kulture is rambunctious and doesn’t yet have the identical poise as her big sister in front of the cameras—however it’s not hard to see the burgeoning star inside her, even with famous parents who need to be sure that she stays grounded. “We still teach our children like normal parents,” Offset says. “I’ve never told my daughter she’s a star. I need her to have the mind of a working person. I all the time tell my kids how hard I worked, what number of years I put in to be ready where all the pieces is nice.”

It took a while for Cardi and Offset to create a solid marital foundation as well. In December 2018, five months after Kulture was born, Cardi announced via Instagram that she and her then newlywed husband had split. Couples often say the primary yr of marriage is the toughest, and their union was a testament to that. “I feel like our first yr, despite the fact that we were in love with one another, we had plenty of lust,” Cardi says. “We didn’t really know one another like that, because he was doing 4 shows per week. I used to be doing 4 shows per week. We might see one another about three or 4 times a month.”

A bit of greater than a yr later, they reconciled; and though the couple’s skilled obligations haven’t necessarily slowed down—Offset is preparing to release his second solo studio album this summer, and Cardi is working on recent music while filming her Meta original series Cardi Tries—things are significantly better. As Offset says, “We understand our job.”

As such, the couple give one another freedom to prioritize their careers when crucial. “It’d sound weird, but we don’t all the time put love first—because sometimes you’ll be able to put love before work and mess up your profession,  since you’re not focused,” Offset says. “Love is vital, but in case you’ve got that foundation, we must always respect one another and what we now have happening. I had never experienced a girl that was working like me and doing what I’m doing. It turns me on. She does her own thing. She likes the hustle, in order that ain’t never getting in between our love.”

Cardi and Offset are balancing work responsibilities with one other toddler in the house: Wave was born on September 4, 2021. This time around, it isn’t just industry pressure they’re up against. It’s Web bullies—like those that recently led Cardi to make ­Kulture’s Instagram page, which has greater than 2 million followers, private.

“We went through plenty of sad things on the subject of Kulture—terrible behavior that not even the older kids have ever been through,” Cardi reveals. “So many individuals will post mean, disgusting things, simply to get a response from us.” It was for that reason the couple waited to point out Wave to the world. Cardi admits: “We wish to guard our feelings, because we get very, very offended and upset.”

Protection is a vital element within the couple’s relationship, particularly on the subject of funds. Even before they were married, Offset took an interest in Cardi’s business deals.

“From the start, I remember he used to ask to see my contracts, and I could be like, ‘Boy, I don’t know you want that,’” Cardi says. “But after I began letting him in on more things, I began seeing things in a different way. People have cut me short so much, and ever since I actually have involved him in my business, I’ve been doing so significantly better. Sometimes people will make you are feeling you deserve lower than what you’re price.”

Offset chalks Cardi’s early experience as much as the character of the business, which is designed to reap the benefits of newer artists. Admitting he needed to bump his own head a time or two, he says on the subject of his oversight nowadays, “I just need to be sure that the family’s straight. We have now children together. We have now family behind us. They’re depending on us. The industry, it’s just a little slick. You’ve got to have your eyes open—and I’ve been in it just a little longer, so I understand how things could be. I just need to be sure that the business is correct.”

The mixture of that concern with their love for one another and their family is what has sustained their marriage. “We just became closer,” Cardi says of how they’ve weathered storms over the past five years. “We understand one another more now. To me, it’s serious, locked in for all times—partnership sh-t, best friend sh-t. Sometimes it’s like, okay, he’s my husband, but he’s really my best friend. We pick one another up once we’re down. I feel like no person has my back like him—and he knows I got his back all the best way, irrespective of what, and nothing could are available in between that.”

“It’s a secure house,” Offset sums up. That security is magnified by being part of a giant family. During summer and Christmas holidays, the youngsters are with him and his wife under one roof. Cardi describes their time together as “lit,” saying, “Once they leave, it’s like an enormous sadness.”

Reflecting on the fantastic thing about her blended family, she adds, “I feel like sometimes people go right into a relationship with a person or a girl who has kids with negativity—and I feel like people should embrace it, and like it. I really like our family, and I wouldn’t want it some other way.”