6.I AM MUSIC THOUGHTS

is he music? that and lot of answers but even more questions...

I AM MUSIC THOUGHTS

(Intro + Carti History + WLR Era)

It’s been almost a month since the release of Playboi Carti’s fourth official project, simply titled Music. I still can’t believe it’s out. I still can’t believe it’s called Music. As a self-proclaimed Carti History Student, I remember reading the rare 2022 XXL print interview where he casually revealed the name. I can’t believe it sounds like that either, but at the same time, it kind of makes sense.

After five years, and Carti being everywhere and nowhere at the same time, the hype had reached a level that felt almost impossible to live up to. Carti comes directly from that exclusivity hypebeast pipeline. Even early in his career, he was always part of the conversation while barely giving fans anything. It only took a few songs as a teenager to turn him into an underground legend, co-signed by tastemakers like Ian Connor and eventually signed by A$AP Rocky. That led to his first mixtape, which dropped right as the SoundCloud movement was peaking and pushing into the mainstream.

He was a bit late to the mainstream compared to his peers, but even then, he was a mysterious figure with a cult fanbase and real respect. All fans needed to hear was a few features with Lil Uzi Vert, who was already calling Carti his peer, even though the popularity gap was clear back then. It’s wild to think his first major single was a song about how everyone sounds like him, when most people didn’t even know who he was yet. With songs like Magnolia, that first tape was an instant classic and a perfect debut album.

Even though it had commercial success, Carti became the poster boy for “mumble rap,” almost like a case study for how far someone could push that sound and still be viable. Another critique that has followed him forever is that he’s all style and no substance, maybe the greatest Aura to Bars ratio of all time.

The next year he dropped Die Lit, another classic for people like me. I was 14 at the time. Die Lit felt like a continuation and refinement of Self Titled with a bigger feature list, elevated Pierre Bourne production, and the same style pushed even further. It was a slow burn for a lot of people. I remember fans having to push the "Die Lit is Top 5 AOTY" agenda back then.

Later that same year, he announced the now iconic and infamous Whole Lotta Red, which didn’t come out until more than two years later. Multiple versions leaked or got scrapped, but the leaks only made the album more mythical. Just like what happened with Uzi’s Eternal Atake. Songs like “Pissy Pamper,” where he pushed the baby voice to the limit, went viral in a way almost no other leaks have.

After all the leaks, hype, and delays, Whole Lotta Red finally dropped on Christmas 2020. And the internet reaction was brutal. People immediately called it a flop, a waste, trash.

Every Carti fan remembers that moment. The entire timeline was dragging the album, and some fans will even admit they hated it too. Carti albums always get hate at first. The hype and aura draw in casual listeners, but the music still isn’t built for them. It throws people off, sometimes even disgusts them. And to be honest, a lot of Carti fans kind of like it that way.

Eventually, the term "WLR effect" got coined to describe how the album grows on you after sounding terrible the first time. Part of the reason the reaction was so harsh was because Carti completely abandoned his signature sound. The music was more rock-influenced. The songs were short, disorganized, and fully committed to the vampire and punk themes. Ironically, all of that is what people now celebrate about it.

I could write a whole book about Whole Lotta Red, but what matters is how it became massively influential in the underground. It was credited for shaping a wave, even when it shouldn’t have been, and carved out a lane that only Carti and his fans could travel. Rick Owens boots, all-black outfits, face paint, mosh pits, unruly shows, upside-down crosses. That aesthetic bled into the formation of his Opium label too, with artists taking his spot while he stayed quiet.

The MUSIC Era Begins..

That brings us to Music, or at least the 16-month rollout where it felt like the album could drop at any moment—or never at all. For people who weren’t dissecting every clue, the first sign of Carti’s new era was his appearance on Travis Scott’s long-awaited Utopia, on the track FE!N. That song blew up. Like, beyond huge. TikTok brain rot levels of big.

What’s crazy is that a lot of fans didn’t even realize it was Carti on the verse at first. That was his official debut of the deep voice, which caught people way off guard since he’s most known for the baby voice. For months, even Carti fans weren’t convinced it was really him. To this day, casuals still think Carti is the one yelling "FEIN!" even though that’s just Travis doing his best Carti impression.

The deep voice was a moment. For me, it did feel like a shift in his persona—and looking back, that’s exactly what it was. Carti’s unique because he tries, and usually succeeds, at existing in a bunch of different spaces at once. Lately, he seems like he’s trying to appeal more to the streets—while still holding onto his internet cult fanbase. He wants to stay tapped in with the underground, go number one, be seen as experimental and futuristic, but also make safe songs that’ll do numbers. That might be true for a lot of artists, but I don’t think people consider that with Carti because he barely ever says anything himself.

One of the coolest things for Carti fans during the WLR era was the discovery of his burner Instagram. It turned into a spam account where he’d post teasers, photos, clips—basically where most of the Music rollout happened. From November to around March, he dropped six new singles, all with music videos, but only on Instagram. It felt kind of mixtape-ish, having to rip the songs to SoundCloud or watch IG views stack up instead of streams.

During those months, Carti was posting almost daily. He kept sharing the album cover, dropping cryptic captions, and every Opium artist changed their profile picture to the Music cover. At one point, even Pharrell tweeted “PREPARE,” which made fans go crazy thinking he was involved—just for him not to appear on the album at all.

That Instagram run created a frenzy. Each single developed its own little fanbase and had people debating which was the best. Personally, I went through phases with all of them. They’re all great in different ways. 2024 was probably the most popular, had a full YouTube video, allegedly had Kanye production, and had Carti literally saying “2024, music,” even though it came out in 2023. Surely that meant the album was dropping at the top of the year, right?

Around peak Music mania, Kanye was doing one of his usual listening parties for an album that barely existed. And since WLR, Carti and Ye had gotten close. One of the songs played during that event was Carnival, which went immediately viral and later hit number one. That track was Carti’s first number one ever, and Kanye’s first in years—somehow happening right in between his Nazi rant eras. Wild moment in music history.

Then the rollout paused for a bit. Carti went on a feature run. He became the new glitch. The stimulus glitch. He was working with huge names—The Weeknd, Kanye, Future, Travis… Camila Cabello? But the thing is, every song he touched went crazy just off hype alone.

Toward the end of the year, though, the features cooled down. And so did updates from Carti himself. He dropped occasional snippets, sometimes with no lyrics at all—just beats. Some fans started to feel disrespected. People began pretending they didn’t care when the album would come out, but deep down everyone was on edge. No way Carti says “2024, music” and doesn’t drop, right?

Then came Rolling Loud, the festival that’s basically been Carti’s stage for a decade. He performed a bunch of new songs, but gave no updates and no drop date. Blogs started running with little Carti moments again, like him asking a fan if he should wait until January 2025, and the fan saying, “Take as long as you want.” It was funny, but also annoying.

He finally released All Red on streaming—the first song he’d dropped officially in four years. That track was made in 2022 and sounds so much like Future it’s kind of disturbing. It did big numbers at first, but fans still wanted more. That same day, Carti dropped CD bundles for the album—despite it not being done and with no release date in sight. The bundle description said the album had to ship or release by March 2025 or else fans would get refunds. Millions of dollars were on the line.

So, anticlimactically, Carti revived his slow-cooked rollout. Fans were skeptical, but some realized, yo—he has to drop now. Out of nowhere, Kurrco—the biggest hip-hop blog actually tapped in with the Carti/Uzi underground lane—leaked that the album was dropping Friday. No one else confirmed it. It was risky. And after a full day of silence, people thought the rumor was dead.

Then Spotify posted about it. Then, the night before, Carti himself confirmed it was coming Friday. Apparently, he previewed the album for Akademiks, who said Uzi had two features, Thug was on it, and also mentioned XXXTentacion, Justin Bieber, and a surprise guest.

The morning of the release, Kurrco leaked that Kendrick was that surprise feature, which set off a moral debate across the Drake vs. Kendrick 30+ side of Twitter. No matter how big Carti is, and no matter how long people waited for this album, it still became bait for yet another Drake and Kendrick war.

The argument? How could Kendrick collaborate with Carti, who’s been arrested and accused of domestic abuse, and then try to take a moral high ground in his beef with Drake? It’s a valid convo. But also wild how Music became the center of it, considering it was the most anticipated album in the last five years for almost everyone under 21.

The Release and the Wait

One thing I should mention is that this all happened during Ramadan. And during Ramadan, I don’t listen to music at all. I know that probably sounds contradictory since I was still consuming all the content around the album, but avoiding the actual songs—it was honestly impossible not to. It was interesting seeing everything unfold from the outside. I couldn’t hear anything myself, but I was still caught up in all the chaos.

Luckily, I didn’t stay up until midnight waiting for the drop. When I woke up at 2 AM, I found out the album had been delayed to 3 AM PST. Then when that time rolled around, it shifted again to “any minute now.” It didn’t actually drop until around 7 AM. I ended up being awake from 4 to 7 watching it all unfold. Refreshing Twitter. Seeing everyone react to songs I couldn’t even hear yet. It was hilarious.

Carti announced the tracklist and features just hours before release. The fact that it had 30 songs was immediately controversial. Thirty songs is a lot to sit through in one go, and you know some of them could’ve been cut to make it tighter. But at the same time, I feel like my favorite songs would’ve been the ones left out. So I wasn’t mad.

Even though I couldn’t listen for two weeks, I was still watching all the conversations around the album. It felt like 70% of my timeline was Carti-related for days. I like to check in on fan communities and message boards just to see how people are feeling. The thing is, those places are always filled with disappointment at first, no matter how good the album is. Sometimes I think it’s even worse when fans start saying “let it have the WLR effect” right away or try to flex like they loved it on day one. Most of the time, my first listen to any album just sounds like noise anyway. It takes a while for things to really click.

Even back in his SoundCloud days, Carti always had a super dedicated fanbase—fans who bring him up in any conversation online. Being a Carti fan means being part of this whole ecosystem. Because he starves his fans of music and information, the communities that form around him end up being about more than just the music. They become hubs for what I’d call “Carti Culture.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/CartiCulture/

Funny enough, there’s literally a subreddit called r/CartiCulture, which was supposed to be the more serious place to talk about his music. Meanwhile, the main subreddit, r/PlayboiCarti, is just chaos—almost everything but Carti, in detail. That sub has almost a million subscribers. I’m pretty sure it’s the biggest artist-based subreddit on the platform.

As Carti’s fame grew, so did what counted as “Carti Culture.” At one point, it felt like the subreddit was full of edgy alt kids who thought Carti was a bisexual vampire, and now it feels like half of RAPTV’s audience is in there too. A lot of people make being a Carti fan a core part of their personality. Especially back when it was a little offbeat—when everyone at your school was bumping Lil Baby, and you were the Carti kid.

But it doesn’t always translate. As Carti’s sound and style changed, so did the culture that followed him.

Swamp Izzo, Features, and Carti’s Creative Control

One of the most interesting parts of this whole rollout, and the album itself, was the inclusion of legendary mixtape DJ Swamp Izzo. I remember back in early 2023 when Izzo was going around saying he’d be on the next Carti album, and everyone assumed he was lying. Then all the IG singles dropped and he was yelling all over them. Even in that Latto snippet. And honestly, it works.

I really like Swamp Izzo’s presence on this project. Since Carti’s flow has gotten way more sparse and the classic ad-libs are almost gone, Swamp kind of becomes the extra energy. He fills that empty space. When the singles first dropped, a lot of fans thought Izzo was ruining the songs, and that led to a wave of people defending him, saying this new sound wasn’t even for everyone. Like a lot of things with Carti, it quickly turned into a mob mentality thing. But if you were ever a fan of the mixtape era, you probably grew to love those loud DJ tags and voices covering the entire song.

The placement of Swamp Izzo feels very intentional, not just random. That old-school ATL mixtape style might be the only consistent theme this album actually follows. It also ties into something that doesn’t get talked about enough—Carti’s place within Atlanta’s legacy. He’s said before how much that city and its culture shaped him, but you wouldn’t always catch that just by listening.

This also connects to something I’ve thought for a long time. Carti and Uzi are more like mixtape artists than album artists. And I don’t mean that as a bad thing. They’re both my goats. What I mean is that they record so often, and make songs so fast, that trying to narrow it all down into one big official album feels unnatural. That’s why the albums always feel chaotic, like there were a dozen different versions before this one. If Carti dropped more often and just released whatever fit his current mood, it would probably feel better. Plus, it would help with the fact that half his discography leaks anyway.

Back to the ad-libs—there’s barely any on this project. That’s wild considering how iconic his ad-libs are. But he replaces them with something new. The “see-yuh” sound, which first popped up in the IG singles, kind of became his new signature. It’s not really an ad-lib in the traditional sense, but it plays that role now. It reminds me of a “shamone” or some other exaggerated sound that just becomes part of the performance. And what’s funny is that it somehow works in every type of song. On Pop Out, the “see-yuhs” are actually insane.

Also, just to be a nerd for a second—someone actually counted. There are 154 “see-yuhs” on this album, which is more than the 145 “yeahs” and a little less than the 171 “mys.” And that says a lot, because the actual ad-lib percentage on this album is only five percent. On Whole Lotta Red, it was twenty-one percent. That has to be the most ad-libbed number one album of all time.

Features, Opium Absence, and the AI Debate

One thing this album will definitely be remembered for, whether people like it or not, is the stacked feature list. I’ve seen people call it the 2010s All-Star Team, minus Drake of course. There’s a whole storyline there too, with Carti apparently not clearing a feature for Drake after Drake previewed a song with the caption “00VO,” then Carti turns around and drops three songs with Kendrick instead.

Besides Kendrick, none of the features are that surprising. Most of them have worked with Carti before. My issue isn’t just how many features there are, but how much space they take up. On most songs, the features get more time than Carti himself. This whole album is only sixty-five percent Carti vocals. That’s a real stat.

The most ridiculous example is the Young Thug feature, which was supposedly the reason the album was delayed past midnight. That song is a five-year-old leak that originally had Gunna on it, and you can still hear Gunna’s ad-libs in the background. The song ends up being one of the longest on the album, but Carti’s only on it for twelve bars. Then you’ve got CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE, which starts off crazy but randomly has Future breathing on the beat for like a full minute before it circles back to the hook. The song’s nearly four minutes long, which feels weird on a Carti album.

Then there’s Travis. He shows up four times. That makes sense from a business angle for both of them, but they still don’t have much chemistry. I’m a big Travis fan when he’s doing his own thing, but he’s not the most exciting feature artist, especially not on Carti’s kind of project. His best moment might be the ad-libs on Crush, which honestly feels like postmodern trap theater. That was corny but it’s true. The whole track feels like it's building toward something huge, but it never drops. Carti doesn’t come in until over two minutes in and his verse is basically drowned out.

I get that it’s Carti doing a “fuck you” move by throwing a choir, massive production, and a huge feature on a song just to have it go nowhere, but it’s still frustrating. It feels like it should be an epic intro or interlude, but it’s literally track two. Not that I’m mad about that—Pop Out is a crazy opener—but the placement makes Crush feel even weirder. The way the album starts, you’d expect it to be a continuation of the WLR sound, but it’s not really that either.

Back to the features again—I’m not sure they were worth it. Some of the performances I really like, but a lot of the album’s issues come from the featured songs. It’s not even always the guest’s fault. Carti just isn’t the best curator. He’s not like Kanye or Travis who can get the absolute best out of their features. Carti has his own skill set that no other artist in the mainstream has. Trying to make an album in that mold might not be in his best interest.

As one of the biggest Uzi fans alive, I was more than pleased just seeing him on the album not once but twice. They hadn’t officially released anything together since “Shoota” in 2018, which is insane to think about. There were definitely better songs they could’ve picked for this project, but maybe they’re saving those for the eventual 1629* collab album. I’m delusional, I know. Still, I enjoy both tracks. It’s actually hilarious that Carti just threw a solo Uzi song onto Music. The track is 90 seconds long, and Uzi doesn’t even start until 40 seconds in. I wish Carti had a verse on there, but I already like the song a lot.

There was a lot of talk before the drop about how this album was for the younger crowd in hip hop. But Carti is actually the youngest artist on the album. I think the average age of everyone featured is around thirty-five, which is wild. Carti has a thing where he only collaborates with people who are more respected or accomplished than him. You never see him give shine to anyone below his level, especially not from his own label.

And that’s what makes the lack of Opium artists on this album even crazier. The label has existed for almost five years now and Carti still hasn’t dropped a single official collab with any of them. Part of me thinks that’s intentional, part of me thinks he’s just being a dickhead. There were rumors that the features were label-mandated, but I don’t really buy that. I think they reflect Carti’s commercial aspirations and maybe some fear of backlash like what happened in 2020.

But none of that compares to the biggest red flag on this album, which is the confirmed and widespread belief that Rather Lie and Fine Shit—two of the most digestible, radio-friendly songs—have AI Carti vocals on them. I think most people still don’t know. And that’s the scariest part. Even I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t deep in these forums.

The theory comes from leaks and demo comparisons, where a writer named Keith Lawson apparently records reference tracks and then uses a Carti AI voice model over them. He tries to sound like Carti, and then they run it through the AI to make it even closer. And when fans started slowing the songs down and isolating parts, it started to make sense. The flows and subject matter don’t really sound like Carti. It sounds like someone else’s idea of Carti. A cleaner, more watered-down version.

Once I heard the comparisons, I couldn’t un-hear it. The scariest part is that most fans don’t even care. A lot of people fully believe the songs are AI and just accept it. And that sucks, because Fine Shit was one of the songs I actually really liked. I never liked Rather Lie even when it was previewed, but Fine Shit felt refreshing. The beat was different, and the lyrics actually felt personal in a weird way. But now it’s ruined knowing it might not even be him.

The conversation around AI in music is wild. It’s not a gray area for me—I think it’s cooked. But it’s still crazy how we got here. Imagine telling someone five years ago that the most anticipated album in hip hop would drop with AI vocals on it and no one would notice. Rather Lie charted top three recently, and there’s no major media coverage on it possibly being artificial.

And the worst part is Carti didn’t even need to do this. But maybe he did, especially if he wanted a few songs that could live on the radio, or be used in Instagram stories, or hit a more palatable audience. There aren’t many songs in modern Carti’s discography that the average Instagram girl could throw on in a story. Maybe he wanted that look but literally couldn’t make it himself anymore.

At the same time, the songs that show he doesn't need AI—or features—are the ones that were clearly made a while ago. Probably in 2022 or 2023. I talked earlier about how dramatic the vocal change is, going from the baby voice to what we hear now. I get that pitch manipulation and vocal effects play a role, but you can’t ignore how different he sounds. Judging by the photos and lyrics, he smokes a ton of cigarettes, and if you believe the bars, he’s on ketamine regularly.

A few years ago, Carti described this album’s sound as “burnt.” I remember being confused, but now it makes perfect sense. He even said some of the songs were recorded in a cave in France. You can see why the hype around this thing got so unreal.

WLR Comparisons, Nostalgia, and Artistic Identity

There were a lot of different sounds explored on Whole Lotta Red, and I think people just attach themselves to whatever parts they liked the most. My favorite song from that album was Stop Breathing from the jump, but my favorite stretch was the Punk Monk and Die4Guy region. I also really liked the poppy, electro-tinged tracks like Control and Beno, which I think got revisited nicely here on songs like I SEE YOU BBY BOI and Olympian. Tracks like Pop Out and Cocaine Nose carry the chaotic energy side of things.

What tied all the WLR songs together was how alien they sounded compared to anything else happening in hip hop in 2020. That’s something this new project can’t really say for itself. Even the big features on WLR felt like they were entering Carti’s world. On Music, it often feels like Carti is stepping into theirs.

That might be part of why this album is more digestible for the average listener. It’s more in dialogue with the mainstream. Which is ironic, because Carti fans used to clown artists like Polo G and call them “Rap Caviar rappers.” But a lot can change in five years. There’s definitely a nostalgic energy in this album, and nostalgia is probably the most bulletproof tool an artist can use right now. You see that across the underground too. I might write about that later.

My only problem with nostalgia is that the things we’ll be nostalgic for in the future can’t be created by chasing nostalgia now. There’s something kind of self-defeating about that. It’s also interesting to see how this album balances Carti’s image as a “futuristic” artist with how often he pays homage to the past. Even before Music, he always showed love to the ones who came before him. He’s a student of the game.

You can hear that all over this album. From Peewee Longway-inspired lines to the Lil Wayne-style album title. Even the scrapped cover was a clear reference to Wayne’s Dedication tapes. And the most telling Carti line about his mindset might be on H00DBYAIR when he says, “They wanted this album to be offset, but I told them I’m coming normal.”

Who calls their most hyped-up album “normal”? That line says a lot. And also, who is “they”? It’s probably not just his fans—they’ve just been begging for any album. It’s probably not the label either. A super experimental album isn’t guaranteed to sell. In my mind, I take that line as proof that Carti reads the discourse. That he’s aware of the dialogue around his music. Aware of the internet nerds writing 30-minute reviews about him.

You might think it’s silly to look this deep into a Carti bar. Or even be surprised I’m finding any value in the lyrics at all. But I’m here to tell you, people do care about what a rapper says in their songs. Even if it’s just a few lines. I liked the lyrics on WLR more because they were memorable, and some even felt personal. You got different sides of Carti on that album. Music feels more impersonal in comparison.

It’s also funny that line showed up on H00DBYAIR, because that song gets love from a completely different part of the hip hop fandom. It’s one of his most surgical flows ever, on a cold and menacing beat. It reminds me of those spooky, murder-type songs that keep popping up in the underground.

Production, Samples, and Carti’s Ear

It’s kind of misleading to talk this much about this album without going into the production. One of the go-to backhanded compliments people give rappers they don’t like is, “Well, they have good beat selection.” But let’s be real—if you like the beats, you basically like the songs. I never get people who say they like the production but hate the artist’s style on it, like they were expecting Big L bars over something like these beats.

Beat selection is a real skill though. As a rapper, you can’t afford to have even one mediocre beat on your album. A lot of people think artists just get lucky by being handed great beats, but they’re the ones scouting new producers, giving direction, and having the ear to know what really hits. Carti definitely has that.

F1LTHY from Working on Dying is back again and still one of the core producers here. His contributions on WLR were highlights, and now he even has a track named after him. Carti made a smart move by signing producers to Opium and keeping a lot of that sound in-house.

Ojivolta is another duo that shows up a lot on Music. They worked on On That Time from WLR, and they’re insanely versatile. I think they were on over twenty songs on Donda, which is probably where Carti really locked in with them. Oji, one half of the group, is also the guitarist on Carti’s tour and helped put together those fire intro sets he’s been using.

One of the most important additions to Carti’s sound on this album is Cardo Got Wings. It’s a newer linkup, but Cardo has one of the best production résumés of the last 15 years. Think God’s Plan, That Part, Goosebumps, Euphoria, early Wiz, Mac Miller, Baby Keem. He’s super versatile, but on this project, he brings a lot of those eerie, minimal beats like Evil Jordan, Good Credit, and Toxic. Kendrick even says, “Cardo my evil twin, Carti my evil twin,” which some people thought was just him messing up Carti’s name at first.

Cash Cobain shows up on Fine Shit, and there’s a leak of Carti over another Cash Cobain beat that’s absolutely terrible. Metro Boomin produced RADAR, and that beat sounds straight out of 2011. Supposedly it samples John by Lil Wayne, which is one of my favorite songs ever. There’s a key change in there that goes crazy, and the whole song is packed, even though it’s under two minutes. You know Metro touched it because Carti does the “METROOO” ad-lib in that deep voice, twice.

There are way too many producers on this album to name all of them, but the overall production leans way more minimal than WLR while still being effective—most of the time.

It’s funny how Carti jumps between total opposites on this album. You get the pure joy of something like Like Weezy, then something nightmare-fueled like Crank. And it’s not just the sounds—it’s the samples too.

Take Crank, for example. The beat samples “F*** Taylor Gang” by SpaceGhostPurrp, a pioneer of the underground who arguably laid the groundwork for Carti’s whole vamp and gothic aesthetic. SpaceGhostPurrp is probably one of the most influential underground artists who’ll never be understood by the mainstream. He’s also infamous for being absolutely unhinged online. But despite dissing Carti during the old A$AP beef, he actually showed love for the sample flip here. Rare positive moment from him.

Then there’s Like Weezy, which samples Rich Kidz, an Atlanta teen group from around 2008. That track is my favorite on the whole project. With the video too, it might be one of my favorite Carti songs ever. It feels like summer. Like childhood. And Carti sounds completely unhinged in the best way. That Swamp Izzo ad-lib yelling “Y’all n****s ain’t ready!” makes the whole thing feel even more raw.

Another interesting sample is on Philly, which uses the same sample as NBA YoungBoy’s Carter Son, off what I’d argue is his best tape, AI YoungBoy 2. That’s notable because a year or two ago, Carti and YoungBoy were lowkey teasing a linkup. Carti gifted him a chain, they were posting each other, and there were rumors of a collab project. It sounds random on paper, but YoungBoy literally started painting his face and using Carti-style sounds. Their fanbases might be the two most intense cults in hip hop right now.

There are more soul samples sprinkled throughout the album too—way more than you’d expect from Carti. I’d never call that his lane, but somehow it works. I found it hilarious how OPM BABI, which is maybe the most new school, blown-out, wild song on the whole thing, opens with a soul sample. Bit of a catfish.

One of the standout quirks of this album is the snare rolls. These tacked-on, almost last-minute sounding snares are everywhere in the second half. The ones on TWIN TRIM are insanely loud. Like actually painful. I don’t even hate them as a concept—it’s kind of cool how they became a weird signature of the album. But I have no clue why they show up on songs like HBA, where they clearly don’t fit.

Speaking of HBA, for some reason they also removed multiple lines from the original IG version. No explanation. It doesn’t ruin the track, but it’s just one of those little things that adds to how chaotic and rushed this whole album feels.

Carti, Culture, and Brainrot

Recapping everything just makes me realize how hilarious this album actually is. It might be the funniest album ever. Not because it’s a joke, but because the entire situation around it is so ridiculous. The background. The fanbase. The five-year wait just to get something that still feels rushed. The loud-ass snare rolls. The solo Uzi song. Even the best Carti songs on here are great because they’re funny, at least to me.

I honestly think there’s a real connection between why Carti’s music hits so hard for people my age and why it works so well with TikTok and what people call “brainrot” now. For a lot of us, the first time we saw Carti’s music was through meme pages—back when those still had cultural power. Carti’s music wasn’t just songs. It was a vibe, a joke, a punchline, a mood. It slid its way into internet culture so naturally that people who didn’t even listen to him knew his voice or ad-libs.

I’m not really on TikTok like that, but I can tell you Whole Lotta Red became TikTok gold because of how short the moments of euphoria were. A beat drop here, a yell there, something outrageous that hits in a few seconds. It all translated perfectly to the kind of content that gets shared over and over. It grabs your attention but also slides into your subconscious. There’s a little bit of irony in it, but it’s also dead serious. It just works.

I was thinking about that because the first post-release performance for this album was at Rolling Loud—the biggest rap-only festival there is. And the people covering it weren’t even traditional music journalists. It was streamers and internet personalities. That’s just where we are now.

The traditional hip hop media either ignores Carti entirely or clearly doesn’t understand the world around him. And that left the door open for younger, more internet-native voices to fill that gap. Sometimes that leads to funny moments. Other times it’s messy. But either way, it’s different now.

It was hilarious watching him on stage embracing Kai Cenat and Dabo. Like, you can argue those two have more influence in this moment than any rap media outlet. And that says a lot about who Carti’s really for. His whole presence in this era wasn’t about radio interviews or Hot 97 press runs. It was about stream clips and Instagram comments. That’s the community he’s in now.

One last thing before I get into the track-by-track breakdown—something that genuinely surprised me was how many of these songs were already out in some form. Either released, previewed by Carti himself, or leaked. And I wasn’t even fully tapped in with the rollout, but I still felt like I had heard half of it already.

Pop Out was previewed at Wireless Festival in 2023 when he was still in his hardcore phase. I didn’t love the snippet back then, maybe because I was kind of burnt out on that aesthetic. The guitars, the bald goons on stage, the rage vocals—it was cool, but I wasn’t moved.

Mojo Jojo leaked in the summer of 2023. I didn’t like it at the time. It felt too empty. I appreciate Kendrick’s ad-libs more now, but they’re still kind of overwhelming. He’s in the background of every damn line. It gets annoying. Still, “OMG he a goon” is hard.

Backdoor was another one where the snippet had the drums going crazy, so I thought it’d be a banger. But the final version is way slower and almost sensual? I SEE YOU BBY BOI was my favorite snippet, not just because the song goes crazy but because that clip of Carti dancing with a baby to it made it impossible not to be excited.

Trim leaked with a different Carti verse, and I like both versions. Cocaine Nose as a snippet annoyed me. I thought it meant the whole album was going full rage again, and the leak quality made it hard to enjoy.

But now, here we are. It’s out. It’s real. And I’ve got a lot to say about each track. Track-by-Track Commentary

POP OUT
Insane song. Probably the best possible evolution of the WLR sound. The beat literally sounds like something’s being chainsawed, but it still feels good. The ad-libs, the “POP”s, and the “SEEYUH”s are what make it. This is my favorite Carti intro ever, which I know is controversial.

CRUSH
Bit of a letdown. I was expecting more. It builds up like it’s going to explode but just never does. Carti’s verse toward the end is cool, but it’s mixed so low it sounds like it’s drowning. The choir is hilarious though.

K POP
I’ve been appreciating this more lately. I didn’t love it at first since it was the last IG single he posted, but I catch myself repeating the lyrics the most. The whole thing feels like Call of Duty in sound form. It blends Carti eras in a cool way, and the video made it hit harder.

EVILJ0RDAN
This one grew into my favorite of the IG singles. The beat is so abrasive, and Carti’s flow is unexpectedly tight. “THEY CAN’T PUT ME IN NO GENRE, BABY, CUZ I CHANGED THE SONG”—he meant that. The “HE’S COMING” line from Swamp feels like a fight-or-flight trigger. I still laugh that the intro is ripped from TikTok and adds a minute for no reason. And I have no idea what the drop has to do with the word “Popular,” but maybe that’s why the song is literally the most popular.

MOJO JOJO
Funny how much my taste has shifted over the past two years. This beat hits way harder now than when it leaked. It’s simple but groovy. At first, I thought Carti sounded like a creep, but I’ve gotten used to it. Kendrick doing ad-libs is a cool idea, but they’re way too loud and constant. He literally ad-libs every line. “OMG HE A GOON” is hard though.

PHILLY
This just sounds like a throwaway Travis song. It goes on too long without Carti, and while Travis’s hook is kinda catchy, it doesn’t really do much. Carti’s voice on this is completely insane though. “HE CAN’T TEXT CUZ HE DEAD” is an all-timer line.

RADAR
Metro’s beat here is insane. It sounds like it samples John by Lil Wayne, and that key change is wild. The “SWAMP”s and “CARTI”s on this are super catchy. My only complaint is, if Wayne is yelling “It’s Carti World,” you gotta give him a verse.

RATHER LIE
Ignoring the AI stuff for a second, this song just feels a little too chill compared to the rest of the project. It kind of drifts by. And yeah, The Weeknd definitely borrows the Slime You Out melody. It’s not subtle.

FINE SHIT
This one actually hurts. It’s probably AI, and I still like it. The beat is refreshing for Carti, and the lyrics feel more personal—even if they weren’t really his. It’s the kind of song someone who likes everything around Carti but not his actual music would love. “Don’t say you’d die for me, just die” is a great line either way.

BACKDOOR
It’s cool, but I’m still shocked at how slow and chill it is compared to the snippet. I like Kendrick’s part, but not as the hook. Carti’s verses are too sparse, and the beat feels far away, like it’s behind a curtain.

TOXIC
This beat is actually hypnotic. It’s dark in the right way and matches the hook perfectly. Skepta’s verse is solid, but it does feel a little long. Still—legend. “LA CARTI LA CARTI” will be stuck in my head forever.

MUNYUN
Great album cut. Feels like the thesis statement of the whole project. Triumphant energy. Carti floats and Swamp Izzo has one of his best performances here.

CRANK
Legendary Swamp Izzo moment. He’s completely unhinged here—screaming “LET’S GO LET’S GO LET’S GOOOO” like he’s fighting for his life. The whole song is wild but super catchy. “FREE THROW. FREE THROW.” And that sample flip? Hilarious. Shoutout SpaceGhostPurrp… maybe.

CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE
The song starts off really promising and the beat is great. I’d be lying if I said I don’t randomly yell “CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE” sometimes. Still, the song is too long and the Travis feature feels tacked on. I don’t get why Future just breathes on the beat for like 50 seconds, then it goes right back to the hook. Feels like a missed opportunity.

GOOD CREDIT
I like the urgency in Carti’s verse. My friend said it sounds like he’s out of breath, and that’s exactly why I like it. Kendrick’s verse is good, probably his best contribution on the album, but “CARDO MY EVIL TWIN, CARTI MY EVIL TWIN” is kinda corny. I love the key change right before Kendrick comes in and the line “that’s how you should like it…”

I SEEEE YOU BBY BOI
The intro and the drop are actually transcendental, especially after all the dark energy in the first half of the album. It feels like the start of a new section. Some parts get repetitive and Carti’s voice sounds strange at times, but it’s funny to imitate.

WAKE UP F1LTHY
Carti’s always had dark, atmospheric beats on his albums, but nothing like this. This one feels more like something Travis would be on, but it really works here. Probably my favorite Travis performance on the album, even though I still don’t get why he said “F*** LaFlame now she burntttt.”

JUMPIN
The great reunion of Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti. It’s overstated because they’ve probably made over 100 songs since “Shoota,” but it’s still cool. They’ve both changed their styles a lot but still have chemistry. That “don’t do that my nigga” ad-lib seems to be from an older Uzi leak. It’s also weird that Uzi says “Pink Tape” like 12 times in a row on a Carti album.

TRIM
Another legendary Swamp Izzo performance. My theory is Swamp was hype to finally talk over a Future-style song after hearing stuff he normally wouldn’t mess with. Future goes absolutely nuclear, easily the best feature on the album. Carti’s verse is ominous and great too, even though it’s basically a joint verse with Swamp. “REALLY I’M TRIM” is so catchy. “YOU GOT THE WHOLE MUTHA****IN WORLD SAYIN TRIM.”

COCAINE NOSE
The Ashanti sample is fire and Carti’s voice is so strained that it depends on my mood whether I enjoy it. Sometimes it’s a chore to get through, but I respect the effort. I can imagine this going crazy at shows.

WE NEED ALL DA VIBES
Thug’s voice sounds off on this, more raw than usual. Ty Dolla’s good like always, but the song itself is too standard and ends up just fading out. It’s an old Thug leak and just feels like a Thug song. They even forgot to cut some of Gunna’s ad-libs. Carti’s verse is super short, which sucks because he started it off really well.

OLYMPIAN
This is the real start of the final stretch and it’s amazing. I like this attempt at the upbeat electro sound more than I SEEEE YOU BBY BOI. That little beat breakdown part goes hard. This would’ve been a perfect Ken Carson feature.

OPM BABI
Probably the most left-field song on the album. I 100 percent get why people think it’s too much. The 808s are completely blown out like one of those crash-out TikTok slideshows. Then there’s loud gunshots flying all over the place, plus every sound on the Swamp Izzo soundboard. But once it settles in, the song is actually incredible. It blurs the line between meme and masterpiece. And it’s nice to hear Carti go into a higher pitch and sing a little. Clayco snapped on the beat.

TWIN TRIM
This song is 90 seconds long, 45 percent beat, 55 percent Uzi, zero percent Carti, and has the loudest snare rolls I’ve ever heard. It starts with a wild opening line. The song is still hard though, but I’m very biased. A part of me actually finds it kind of sweet that Carti gave his bestie his own interlude on the biggest album of his career.

LIKE WEEZY
My favorite song on the album by far. To me this song is perfect. Every time I hear it, I want to replay it. I feel the same joy every single time. The video’s amazing too.

DIS 1 GOT IT
“MOLLYS PERKYS, I FEEL SO INVINCIBLE.” Carti sounds so much like Future here it’s kind of insane, but the song still hits. This sounds like it would go crazy in a villain-style anime edit. That pocket he gets into when he says “terrio, ooooh I’m killin em” is elite.

WALK
Most slept-on song on the project. I can’t believe it’s the least streamed one. Carti floats on this effortlessly and the effects on his voice strike a perfect balance between the deep voice and actual emotion. I quote this song all the time in the exact same cadence. “SEE THIS GONNA FEEL LIKE THE END OF THE WORLD TO LOT OF YOU F*** N****S.”

HBA
This was originally my least favorite of all the IG singles, but it grew on me a lot. It’s a huge pace change for Carti, but he feels really locked in here. The flows and pockets he finds are fun to rap along with. “DOUBLE 0 WE THE BIGGEST EVER WE JUST GETTIN READY FOR THE CROSSOVER.” It also has my favorite lyric on the whole project. “They wanted this album to be offset, but I told them I’m coming normal.”

OVERLY
This song is just fun. It’s nice to hear Carti use the deep voice and still have an infectious melody. Every Maaly Raw beat is classic. One of my favorites on the album for sure.

SOUTH ATLANTA BABY
First time I heard this I started screaming at my homie that he wasn’t hearing this man Carti for real. He was really talking on this one. It’s the perfect outro. He sounds focused, like he knew exactly what he wanted this to be. The DJ Swamp Izzo narration ties it all together. Makes the whole album feel like something that might be seen as a classic one day, flaws and all.

FOMDJ (BONUS)
Never really cared for the snippet but the beat here is one of the best on the whole project. Carti’s hook is super smooth and catchy. This whole sound feels like something that was missing from the main album. And the video is actually professional and really good too.

PEAK:
LIKE WEEZY, POP OUT, SOUTH ATLANTA BABY, EVIL JORDAN (intro excluded), TRIM, DIFFERENT DAY, CRANK

FKN GREAT:
OPM BABI, DIS 1 GOT IT, 2024, WALK, HBA, OLYMPIAN, TWIN TRIM, JUMPIN, OVERLY, K POP, RADAR, BACKR00MS

REALLY GOOD:
TOXIC, MUNYUN, WAKE UP F1LTHY, GOOD CREDIT, I SEEEE YOU BABY BOI

DISSAPOINTING / IGHT:
CRUSH, BACKDOOR, CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE, MOJO JOJO

OKAY:
PHILLY, COCAINE NOSE

NOT REALLY GOOD:
WE NEED ALL DA VIBES

AI:
RATHER LIE, FINE SHIT

THANKS FOR READING, WHOEVER YA ARE!