MUSIC - Playboi Carti: Review

Review by Lavender:

Playboi Carti is a rapper who rose rapidly to popularity around 2016 on the back of a few viral hits on his self-titled debut mixtape. That was followed by two records that played with unique sounds in the highly-populated world of trap music and both garnered substantial critical acclaim. 2018's Die Lit remains a personal favorite of mine whose woozy psychedelic beats remain undeniable to this day. That was followed in late 2020 by Whole Lotta Red which substantially switched up Carti's sound and became highly influential in the worlds of vamp and rage. After several release dates were announced and never followed up on and a series of singles were uploaded to YouTube last year, we've finally arrived at Carti's follow-up. Music, by comparison, is even more all over the place than its predecessor though it delivers a comparable energy. What it doesn't deliver is anywhere near as dramatic a progression in his style or ethos as I was hoping for. 

I've always had a soft spot for Playboi Carti, so it won't surprise you to know that some of my favorite songs on the record are ones with a flash of his vintage style. This mostly happens on the second half of the record, first with "MUNYUN" which takes me back to some of the post-Die Lit Carti leaks, and I mean that as the highest possible praise. "OLYMPIAN" feels like it comes from a similar era and serves as a massive breath of fresh air late on the album alongside the Young Thug and Ty Dolla $ign-featuring "WE NEED ALL DA VIBES." 

But for the most part, this album dabbles in the same highly compressed, linear compositions and rage stylings many expected. It's also 30 tracks and 76 fucking minutes long. That means that a LOT of these tracks either don't add up to much, or traverse the same exact ground over and over, so I certainly won't be talking about all of them. But we'll get there because there are still more highlights to discuss. 

Kendrick Lamar pops up on this album a few times because apparently, his moral high ground in regards to the Drake beef doesn't apply to guys like Carti or fucking Kodak Black. Regardless, he does adlibs on another huge highlight "MOJO JOJO" which features one of the funniest lyrics I've ever heard Carti write about seeing through a go-pro. Kendrick gets a full verse on the song "GOOD CREDIT" and even though he doesn't precisely make sense on a song about Carti taking molly and seeing aliens, he killed it regardless. He also pops up on a new version of "BACKD00R" which is the first point on the album where he really gets to shine and while it isn't my favorite of the bunch, I'm still pleasantly surprised by how well Kendrick can slot himself into Carti's world. 

In fact, there are a number of feature highlights abound on the record. Travis Scott pops up on "PHILLY" and actually handles a majority of the song himself but does it with a series of hooky refrains I can't get enough of. Carti and Skepta cross paths on the song "TOXIC" and while it's no "Lean 4 Real" Skepta kills it and the two still have a lot of chemistry. Speaking of chemistry, Lil Uzi Vert is on this record twice for "JUMPIN" and "TWIN TRIM." While the pair don't quite trade-off as fluidly as they have on a masterpiece like "Shoota" they still manage to bring out the most fun sides of each other. 

Occasionally instead of bringing in a feature Carti just does an impression of some other rapper that's so blatant it's embarrassing. That's the case with "K POP" which sounds more like a Lil Yachty song than most actual Lil Yachty songs. It's even more egregious on "WALK" and "OVERLY" where Carti tries his hardest to sound indistinguishable from Future. That's extra funny because Future himself pops up on the record on the mediocre "CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE." 

There's actually quite a lot to like on the record and I think I could pick out a 15-song tracklist that was at least on the level of Whole Lotta Red. Unfortunately in its current presentation, MUSIC cuts its highlights with almost as many innocuous moments. For example, the album gets off to a pretty predictable start with the raucous rage opener "POP OUT." But it has at LEAST 6 other songs on the record that just feel like functionally identical versions that add up to equally or even less exciting results. One of which is "CRUSH" which is functionally rambling nonsense that doesn't make anything out of its various pieces. Another is "RATHER LIE" where The Weeknd sets a pretty grounded tone for the song on the hook, over top of which Carti sounds like an actual cartoon character. 

Another one of my favorite tracks on the record is "FINE SHIT" because it's both thematically focused and packed full of catchy flows. Carti tries something similar on a track like "EVIL J0RDAN." This song has actually been out for a while now and Carti knows that almost everyone hates the annoying phone-ringing beat, yet he left it in any way. It's a testament to Carti's personality and ethos that I can almost deal with it enough to make myself like the song anyway. 

In fact, MUSIC may be a stronger testament to Carti himself than it is an actual album. Dozens of rap records just like this come out every year, with tracklists stacked to the teeth to run up streaming numbers and features from the same 12 rappers everyone gets features from. But I enjoy listening to MUSIC MUCH more than any Lil Baby record I've ever heard. Despite Carti's ability to elevate the style, at the end of the day this is still an extremely bloated record. Because of the years-long recording process, the project also lacks much sonic cohesion giving it the feeling of a compilation rather than an album of songs intended to be heard together.

It also can't be overstated just how exhausting it is to listen to such dark, loud, and compressed music for well over an hour without much attention being paid to tracklisting or composition. That's why so many of the features and brighter or even just lighter moments stand out as such big highlights, despite being from a rapper who has always dabbled in great bangers. As I said earlier, there's a pretty solid 15 or even maybe 18-20-track album within MUSIC, but that isn't how it was presented. In trying to give fans everything they deserve after years of missed announcements and release dates come and gone, Carti may have held back the FULL artistic potential of his most anticipated album to date. 6/10

For more trap, check out my review of Lil Baby's WHAM