Tiffany Haddish‘s weekend appearance as host of Saturday Night Live made headlines for the rarity of Black female comic taking on that role, but her performances more than proved her chops as she absolutely nailed her impression as current rap queen Cardi B in a mock audition for a role in the live-action remake of The Lion King. With a cast featuring megastars such as Beyonce, and with Cardi’s rising star status, the spoof tape makes perfect sense as Haddish’s Cardi appears alongside Jay Pharaoh’s Offset to perform a turnt-up rendition of “Can You Feel The Love Tonight,” complete with Offset’s signature name-shouting ad-lib.
The sketch also lampooned several other prominent hip-hop personalities including Lin-Manuel Miranda (with a typically syllable-packed four-bar rap), LL Cool J, Mary J. Blige (also portrayed by Haddish after some quick-change magic), and Eminem (with an excellent reference to his table-shaking BET Hip-Hop Awards freestyle).
Ever since Offset proposed to Cardi at Powerhouse Philly the pair have been inseparable, so having them audition as a unit in the sketch is a stroke of comedic genius as it allows Haddish to perfectly imitate Cardi’s habit of draping herself all over her beau at public appearances. To be completely honest, the whole sketch could have just been them doing various renditions of songs from The Lion King and it would have been just as good. Cardi hasn’t responded to the sketch yet, but we she does you can bet it will be just as funny — if not more so.
