Once the first act’s pyrotechnics and dramatic visuals gave way to six distinct movements through her catalog, the show’s ambitions started rubbing against its limitations. The staging often teetered between vision and gimmick – at one point Cardi perched inside a colossal birdcage, at another she presided over a giant taco during the Latin-flavoured stretch of the set – as if the metaphors needed their own metaphors to make sense. 

While newer cuts from last year’s AM I THE DRAMA? like “Magnet,” “Better Than You,” and “Pretty & Petty” (many of them live debuts) showcased her lyrical acuity and narrative ambition, they lacked the immediate kinetic thrill of her older warhorses. When the crowd’s energy surged, it was with the emphatic call-and-response of tracks like “WAP,” “I Like It,” and “Up,” underlining a glaring truth: the more muscular, theatrically conceived newer material still has some work to do before it resonates as universally as her classics.