Table of Contents
Star Power on MUSIC
The most recent release of Playboi Carti, MUSIC, features Kendrick Lamar, Future, and Travis Scott as the star-studded guests. More than that, the presence of these top stars all together is a clear indication of the power of the music industry to give Carti uniqueness. Consequently, he solidifies his standing as both a genuine pioneer constantly pushing boundaries and a deliberate provocateur challenging conventions within modern hip-hop through this project.
On the other hand, Atlanta, Georgia, unquestionably still is an amazing place full of music and creative ideas. Nevertheless, the state of the local hip-hop scene in the city is not like it used to be at all. Firstly, it is a fact that the most important group of the genre, Migos, no longer exists after the loss of Takeoff. Besides, the famous rapper Future has now become a person in his forties and therefore he is now in a new phase of his career.
More so, Young Thug got his YSL whole crew torn apart as all the members were found guilty of serious charges of violating the RICO Act, while, on the other hand, some of his band members deserted him. As a result, following these severe changes, Playboi Carti out of the blue and beyond any reasonable doubts, emerged as a new blood artist and an absolutely important representative of the younger generation of the artists in Atlanta.
Carti’s Emergent Leadership
Importantly, Carti now effectively holds the torch high for Atlanta’s vibrant rap scene, stepping into a leadership void. This crucial role comes directly as many of his prominent peers face daunting legal battles that sideline them or gradually settle into comfortable roles as respected elder statesmen within the industry. His emergence fills a gap left by these significant shifts affecting other key figures who once dominated the city’s sound.
Moreover, since the heartbreaking passing of Takeoff and the disruptive legal fallout surrounding the YSL collective, dedicated fans have endured an incredibly long period filled with endless teases, vague hints, and persistent rumors regarding Playboi Carti’s highly anticipated next musical move. Countless songs leaked prematurely online, numerous promised release dates came and went without fulfillment, and entire major festival sets like Rolling Loud passed by without any official word or new material arriving. Admittedly, the intense initial momentum surrounding snippets like “HBA” and “Evil Jordan,” which once lit up social media timelines, may have naturally waned over time. However, Carti’s intensely devoted, cult-like fan base remarkably remained patient and hopeful throughout this extended, frustrating wait.
Patience Rewarded
Finally, when the prominent commentator Akademiks authoritatively confirmed the album’s truly impending release, it genuinely felt like witnessing the end of a long-running myth finally becoming reality. Consequently, that immense patience displayed by fans over the years has now been decisively rewarded with the arrival of MUSIC. By itself, this performance is an extended, considerably lengthy, and to a small extent, nostalgic compilation. Of paramount importance, it is not afraid to spearhead Carti’s sound of a new epoch in the music world while at the same time being extremely loyal to the defined underground culture, erratic artistic nature, and iconoclastic spirit of the musician.
MUSIC rips into a completely raw, abrasive, and deliberately random listening experience. Picture yourself being placed squarely in the middle of a whirling mosh pit formed entirely of distorted sound where the atmosphere is full of unrelenting chaos, and any hint of smooth fluidity is long gone. The album’s opening track, “Pop Out,” for one, obviously sets the aggressive tone of the project immediately. It takes a lot of inspiration from guttural, punk-adjacent sources that definitely bring to mind Playboi Carti’s early roots in the SoundCloud community.
The problem is that the album is still very experimental, and there are several production choices that are too much for the ears, yet Carti’s voice in a lot of places becomes sort of muffled, ever so faint. He functions more like an additional instrument layered into the mix rather than emerging as the clear, driving force commanding the tracks themselves. Consequently, it seems as though he has transformed into a vessel primarily channeling his producers’ sonic vision, subtly blending into the overall fabric of the music instead of boldly commanding it from the forefront.
Producer-Driven Soundscapes
This noticeable dynamic becomes particularly evident on collaborative pieces such as “Crush,” featuring Travis Scott. Here, diverse elements of electronic music and traditional trap beats intricately meld together, further layered with unexpected gospel-like choir sections. Importantly, these soaring choirs end up accentuating the complex production itself just as much as, if not more than, Carti and Scott’s own performances, which are heavily reliant on ad-libs rather than structured verses. The overall effect shifts the focus distinctly towards the soundscape crafted around the artists.
Plus, in spite of its ambitious sonic overture, the lyrical content that runs through the entire project hardly scratches the surface of any new thematic areas apart from the well-furrowed triumvirate of money, drugs, and sex. Yet, Carti gives it a try to overstep such thematic barriers through a chain of vocal momentous experiments strategically spaced throughout the track list. Tracks featuring prominent guests, like Travis Scott’s “Fe!n” and the Ye and Ty Dolla $ign collaboration “Carnival,” effectively showcase how impactful deliberate tonal shifts in delivery can be within collaborative settings, even if these experiments don’t consistently achieve their intended impact.
Also, in “K-Pop,” Carti explicitly applies a deep, extremely distorted voice effect similar to his work in “Fe!n”, which he strangely pulls off with ease, not only without ruining his usual style, but also contributes to the refreshing and unsettling dimension. In contrast, “Cocaine Nose” takes that same gruff, throaty vocal style a notch higher and in the extreme, it develops into an almost primal, animalistic growl that not only aggressively surpasses over a mound of heavily distorted electric guitars and ear-thumping drums but revels in the same space with them.
Guest Star Impact & Identity Issues
The album MUSIC becomes an extravagant event of the highest calibre only due to its very eclectic and star-studded list of special guests. The great number of top-tier stars like Future, Young Thug, Jhené Aiko, Lil Uzi Vert, The Weeknd, Skepta, Travis Scott, and Kendrick Lamar have a significant presence on the lengthy track list, and most of the artists appear more than once. All the same, there is one significant downside: a large part of these top-grade team-ups gives off the impression of being disjointedly fitted into the Playboi Carti project.
Take “PHILLY” featuring Travis Scott as a prime example; the track’s overall vibe and structure feel remarkably like a leftover relic from their previous collaborative effort as Huncho Jack, leaning far more distinctly towards Travis Scott’s signature style than Carti’s own unique aesthetic. The inevitable result is a song that audibly registers more accurately as a Travis Scott track featuring Playboi Carti, rather than the inverse arrangement promised by the billing. This blurring of creative ownership occasionally dilutes Carti’s presence on his own album.
Scott & Future’s Anthemic Collaboration
Furthermore, Travis Scott makes a substantial total of four distinct appearances across the album. His penultimate feature lands significantly alongside Future, who himself contributes two verses, on the notably anthemic track “CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE,” produced by Wheezy. Moreover, alongside the recurring Swamp Izzo vocal drops scattered strategically throughout MUSIC, this specific song powerfully embodies a deliberate revival of the raw, unfiltered mixtape era. Sonically, it crafts a distinctive atmosphere: purposefully muddy and lo-fi in texture, generating a genuinely sinister feeling, yet simultaneously colossal in scale and perfectly engineered to ignite energy at ragers or live shows. This potent combination captures a specific nostalgic energy while feeling undeniably current.
Kendrick Lamar’s Varied Contributions
Simultaneously, when that pervading, malevolent energy is exerted, Kendrick Lamar’s own three features on the project cannot escape from it. He is most clearly present and therefore most influential in the track “Good Credit”, where his vocabulary and skills are what make him a brilliant master of words and the one who leads the listener. Nevertheless, in the case of the other two, he really acts as a tool that enables Playboi Carti’s vision to be completely fulfilled.
The first one, “Mojo Jojo,” is the best example where Kendrick offers bright, colorful, and loud ad-libs that really stand out in the track without overshadowing the song, thus giving depth to it. Also, when he starts on “BackD00r,” he introduces a few soft and low energetic passages that are enough to harmonize the track and the performer of Carti so that they are in the forefront of it, indicating another part of his partner’s unity.
Playboi Carti Creative Dilemma
Moreover, Playboi Carti’s eclectic artistic approach and his distinctive and peculiar double-sided nature are his character. To be more precise, on the one hand, he illustrates the point that he certainly goes to great lengths in breaking and experimenting with the new voice by fiercely mixing the rudeness and impudence of the punk genre with the darkness of an atmospheric gothic vibe in a unique and quite often challenging combination. On the other hand, he also gives the impression of literally repeating the same sounds and styles that originally caused Whole Lotta Red to be a project widely debated, but in the end, highly favored by his loyal fans.
The above mentioned contradiction can be called a split personality of Playboi Carti , which has the aggravating part of remaining his real self as well as the uplifting side of extending his unique sound into the new frontier. Unfortunately, this balance often feels noticeably muddled during the listening experience, frequently leaving audiences genuinely questioning whether Playboi Carti is meaningfully evolving as an artist or merely treading familiar creative water without significant progression.
Ambition Versus Focus
With its undeniably large scale and incredibly ambitious nature, MUSIC is at all times wistful, and its lack of a cohesive focus seems to be present throughout. This is all that seems to have happened, just the way Cardi wanted, so chaotic, unpredictable, and does have its charm as well as a reflection of his rebellious spirit, but at the same time, the entire project looks increasingly cumbersome due to the overabundance of ambition. On the other hand, Playboi Carti never-ending, almost obsessive insistence on being and remaining unconventional and on always doing something that people do not expect him to do not only dilutes the album’s potential of showing clear, genuine artistic growth or a more refined direction, but the situation leads to further complications.
The main points of the album seem scattered instead of being unfolded. Surprisingly, in this riot, MUSIC undeniably functions dually as it is still the most powerful statement of Playboi Carti’s unflinching punk attitudes and brutish energy, and also, a creative work in which the artist identifies himself as the leader of the trailblazer who is always challenging norms in the general hip-hop scene.
