Cardi B wanted the music video for “AH HA” to capture a simple New York summer vibe, but the final price tag turned out to be anything but simple. The Grammy-winning rapper revealed that the Brooklyn-shot visual ultimately cost more than $1 million — far above the roughly $250,000 she initially expected — and claimed expensive permits and other requirements contributed to the ballooning budget.
via Billboard:
The Grammy-winning rapper hopped on Spaces on Thursday (Aug. 27), where Cardi detailed the exhausting process of getting permits in NYC and working with the NYPD, who she feels overcharged her throughout shooting the video because of her A-list celebrity status.
“I don’t understand how the f— this music video was expensive. I swear to God, I wanted this music video to be simple. I wanted a very street New York summer vibe,” she said. “A lot of artists do videos in the streets, that this video would be about $250,000. Bro, this video came out to be over a million.”
Cardi explained that she originally wanted to shoot the visual in her home borough of the Bronx, but ultimately was steered toward Sunset Park in Brooklyn.
“If you look at the video, it doesn’t even give that. Because I’m Cardi B, I be getting overcharged. To get permits, I know for a fact the average rapper that do music videos on blocks, it doesn’t cost that much. I really wanted to do my music video in a small block in the Bronx,” she added. “No, they made me do it in different places.”
Cardi continued: “To get permits, it was so expensive. I feel like they overcharged me for permits. They made it a big deal because I guess I’m Cardi B. It was about 40 NYPD cops, which made it impossible to motherf—ing shoot. NYPD was being so… They was just doing too much.”
Despite the unexpectedly high production costs, “AH HA” ultimately delivered the street-level New York aesthetic Cardi envisioned, with scenes filmed throughout Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. However, Cardi said the difficult experience changed her approach to future shoots, declaring that she does not plan to film another music video in an uncontrolled public setting.
