Cardi B took it to the streets of NYC for the gritty “AH HA” music video, but it cost more than she anticipated, as Cardi revealed the total price tag for shooting the visual was north of $1 million.
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.”
The 33-year-old claimed this will be the last time she does a video shoot with fans being able to watch from a distance due to it being an open set, as she gets nervous with hundreds of onlookers.
“This will be the last time I ever do music videos in a public setting that I cannot get control. I was so overstimulated, I was so underwhelmed,” she said. “I did not enjoy doing this music video. … I’m not doing music videos in open settings ever again.”
“AH HA” served as Cardi’s first single of 2026, which arrived on July 31, while the music video was released nearly a month later on Friday (Aug. 28). The DJ SqanQo-produced hit debuted at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and currently sits at No. 40 on this week’s chart.
