Karrine Steffans Challenges Amber Rose and Cardi B

In a recent interview with the Hip Hop Socialite, Karrine challenges Amber Rose and Cardi B to take their images a step further.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

ON THE ADVICE SHE WOULD GIVE TO THE UP-AND-COMING LADIES IN THE INDUSTRY, LIKE CARDI B AND AMBER ROSE:

To use your brain as much as, or more than, you use your body. To understand that everything comes to an end, and so when you build something based on a caricature of yourself, eventually, and not that long from now, you’ll be in your 30s, and for women who have children, your children will get older, and life starts making a lot more sense. For me it was when I neared 35, around 33, things started looking different for me. Here I am nearly 38, and things look a whole lot different. It was important for me to write more, to use my voice more, to voice my opinions more, and not in a way that other people expected me to. I’m very different from a Cardi B, but still not that different. I think a major difference is that I am, you know, I’ve always been an intellectual. I’ve always been very cerebral, and not a caricature. I didn’t allow people to make me into what they wanted me to be. I think it’s important for women, especially as the public looking at them, to not become what other people want you to be. It’s a dead end because then, when they’re done with you, when they’re done with the character, when they’re done with what they created, they’ll just create something else.

It’s important to find our own voice and to get into our studies and to really study, really, really study and read, and to be articulate so that people can take us seriously on a broader scale. To be educated and to move ourselves out of the situation where we start and not stay there because it makes other people happy, you know. I would love to see someone like Cardi B move into an intellectual position ‘cause she has a lot to say, and I’d love to see her do it in a way that doesn’t make her a caricature for a network run by white people who don’t care about the health and well-being of black women. I’d love to see her be that way. I’d love to see that happening with Amber Rose. As she goes into her new talk show, I’d love to see what she has to talk about. I’m anxious to see her twerk less and speak more. I’m anxious to see women who have the spotlight use their voices more than they use their bodies and to not let the public put them in a box. So I sit back and I watch the women as they grow. I’m a little older than everyone that we’re talking about, and I look forward to their growth. I look forward to it.