Review of 'Music' by Playboi Carti

 

Carti has released Music. Is it worth the 5 year wait?

I would like to begin this review by stating that I am not a ‘vamp’. In fact, I have consistently been a Carti hater on this blog. I had a lotta mean things to say about Whole Lotta Red. And this record’s scatty rollout, the frequent show cancellations and the allegations of choking his pregnant girlfriend haven’t exactly warmed me to him.

But despite all this, I decided to approach Music with an open mind. After all, Carti is one of the most popular rappers in the world right now. 60 million monthly listeners! The Atlanta rapper is clearly doing something right. And I think I might finally get it.

It’s all in the dynamic delivery. Across the 1 ¼  hour runtime of this album, Carti sounds like 30 different artists. He angrily snarls his way through opener ‘POP OUT’, he groans like Future on ‘EVIL J0RDAN’ and he delivers some surprisingly tuneful sing-rapping on ‘RATHER LIE’. He even sounds a bit like Danny Brown on the first verse of ‘LIKE WEEZY’ (although, judging from the track title, I don’t think that was the impersonation he was going for).

His range of different voices is impressive, but if I’m honest, I’m still not converted to Carti-ism. Although I quite like angry Carti and tuneful singing Carti, a lot of his other voices still annoy the shit out of me. He sounds like Lil Yachty with a cold on ‘K POP’ and sounds like he’s been doing too much of Kanye’s nitrous on ‘MUNYUN’. And he straight up sounds like Chris Griffin during parts of ‘MOJO JOJO’ (Kendrick Lamar’s goofy ‘whoah’ and ‘hi’ ad libs only make the song even more unlistenable).

Still, his cartoonish inflections aren’t quite as irritating as they were on Whole Lotta Red, and the beats are better this time too. I love the chaotic distortion of ‘POP OUT’ and the glossy hyperpop synths of ‘I SEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI’. And there’s a 4 track run from ‘OLYMPIAN’ to ‘LIKE WEEZY’ that’s all bangers. There are some utterly forgettable beats here too, but not as many as I thought there would be on a 30 track album.

There’s absolutely no point getting into the lyrics, because that’s not what Carti is about, plus I can’t make half of them out. As for the guest performances, none of them are particularly notable, except for Kendrick’s clownish backup raps on ‘MOJO JOJO’. But, hey, I did enjoy it more than Whole Lotta Red – there’s some tracks I might actually return to like ‘POP OUT’, ‘RATHER LIE’, ‘I SEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI’ and ‘OPM BABI’. All in all, Music is better than the ‘music’ he was making 5 years ago.

★★☆☆☆

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