Playboi Carti is a rapper, songwriter, and model from Atlanta. He is known for his innovative music style. His music style is often described as repetitive, yet catchy. Carti has developed one of the most die-hard fan bases in all of hip-hop. This is due to his changing style and his ability to not only be ahead of trends, but to also set them.
Playboi Carti started rapping in 2011. He started receiving attention and recognition from mainstream rappers in the mid-2010’s. His first studio album, titled “Playboi Carti” was released in 2017. One year later, he released his critically acclaimed album “Die Lit.” Two years following this, Carti released his groundbreaking album, “Whole Lotta Red.” Fans clung to Carti because not only was he able to evolve his style and sound, but he was also able to make these sounds popular. Each album had a different style to it. This made fans wait eagerly for his next album, “Music” for a long three years.
Carti has been teasing fans of this album for some time. Playboi Carti is someone who tries to stay out of the news and avoids social media as much as possible. So, when he posts something, fans go crazy. Seemingly out of nowhere, Carti began to post on his Instagram story hinting at the release of his next album. Carti followed this with a post saying, “I’m Not Playing.” Carti said this is due to his reputation of lying to fans about music releases.
On December 8, 2023, Carti released the first track of the album, “Ur the Moon” on Instagram through his burner account (An anonymous account that is used for activities that the owner does not want tied with their main account). Within 1 month, this song has generated nearly 26,000,000 streams. It was also number one on the trending page. Fans really liked this song as it seemed like a classic Carti song. Using vocal effects, Carti makes his voice higher pitched. It all flowed together very nicely on the beat. Carti used his voice like an instrument through the use of his ad libs in order to connect it all together.
Just under a week later, Carti followed this by releasing his next track, “2024”, which has since been taken down. This song was produced by rapper Kanye West. 2024 was similar to “Ur the Moon” in the first half of the song. Carti used a higher pitched voice and had a nice melody. However, where it differed, is around halfway throughout the song, Carti stopped rapping. Many would assume that the song was over. However, he soon began to start rapping again, just with a deeper voice. This was the first track that Carti has released, outside of a feature, where he used this deep voice. This caused his fans to go crazy. This also skyrocketed this song to be number 1 on the trending page.
Shortly after this, Carti released the track H00DBYAIR. This tracks amassed 20,000,000 streams on Instagram, the only platform that Carti released it on. This track instantly became a fan favorite as it contained a lot more lyricism and insight into Carti’s life than fans are used to seeing. Carti raps about how he felt about certain situations and how he feels about media portrayal. These types of topics have more substance than what Playboi Carti would normally provide. This song also placed #1 on trending.
The final song that Carti released was called “BACKR00MS.” The thing that set this apart from other tracks Carti dropped was that this song had a feature. Travis Scott was featured on this album, just after coming off of his hit album, “Utopia.” While this song does have the worst numbers in terms of streams, it did still receive praise from listeners. It also ranked #1 on YouTube trending. All of these songs go to set the tone and build hype for this album, that is right around the corner.