It finally came after five years of silence, leaks, and delays: Playboi Carti released a new album “I AM MUSIC,” and I was hopeful as a long time fan. It is a big album with 30 tracks, and an audacious, strange, and tiring work all at once. It’s wild and exciting, but also feels like a rough draft that made it all the way to the final cut.
The first three songs “POP OUT,” “CRUSH,” and “MOJO JOJO” land hard. “CRUSH” is carved through with distorted metal riffs and a gospel-like build-up, recalling Kanye’s Donda but with more chaos. “MOJO JOJO,” with Kendrick Lamar’s odd but complementary ad-libs, tripled my surprise at how well their energies married.
But for some listeners, even these early highlights didn’t land.
“Right off the rip, the first song was atrocious,” Noah Mansfield ‘25 said. “It sounded like just noise. Definitely one of the better ones because, you know, Kendrick’s the GOAT. There’s like two good songs on it, I think. I don’t know what the genre was. It was kind of just noise to me.” While he praised the Kendrick feature, most of the album didn’t connect.
Others, like Andrew Sunderhaft ‘25, had a very different reaction.
“Initial reactions, it was like what the heck is going on? But then you have to remember—it’s been five years. Carti went from this alien, druggy rapper out of the SoundCloud era, to this rock star vampire sensation. It’s very innovative of his sound,” Sunderhaft said.
For Sunderhaft, Carti’s transformation is part of the appeal.
“‘Cocaine Nose’ is my favorite. It’s that rockstar lifestyle that everyone needs to have; that mentality,” Sunderhaft said.
By the midpoint of the album, I was zoning out. Songs like “PHILLY” and “TRIM” came off as incomplete or drawn-out. Some tracks sounded to critic Anthony Fantano like “Frankenstein’s monster,” and I get what he means. There is not a lot keeping this album together.
Still, the album matters, even in its messiness. Carti helped define the punk-trap sound years back, and while others tried to swipe his formula while he was on hiatus, “I AM MUSIC” shows he is still in the lead. This album is an essential component of Black experimental hip-hop, according to The Culture Crypt, and I can agree. Tracks like “MUNYUN” and “I SEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI” feel like they’re from the future.
Not everyone sees it the same way. When asked if he’d recommend the album to others, Mansfield replied, “Probably not at all.”
“I kind of liked ‘Whole Lotta Red’ more. I don’t like the low-pitched voice. He does not do it as well,” Mansfield said.
Sunderhaft, however, would recommend this album to anyone.
“To all the vamps out there, the people who need that bass in their ears constantly. That rockstar sound,” Sunderhaft said.
“I AM MUSIC” isn’t Carti’s best, but it’s definitely one of his most intriguing. It’s uneven, but bold. I would much rather listen to an artist attempt something weird and new than play it safe, and Carti is certainly not playing it safe.
