The only certainties in this world are death, taxes and Playboi Carti fans leaking their songs before he can even release them. In the past two years, Carti’s highly anticipated album Whole Lotta Red appeared in sight, but out of reach; the leaking industrial complex acted as a perpetual motion machine, simultaneously fueling the album’s hype and delaying its release, while probably prompting Carti to record additional songs. Before finally reaching the streaming platforms on Christmas morning, Whole Lotta Red it led a rich, though paradoxical, existence that suggested that the album’s release was not obsolete, and the mixtape was not necessarily dead – the culture of fragments and leaks just deconstructed and subverted these forms.
In the endless wait between 2018 Die Lit and Whole Lotta Red, Carti developed his “children’s voice” as a characteristic instrument. During that period, the lively, high-pitched phlegm-covered gurgle graced tracks like Solange’s “Almeda”, Tyler, Creator’s “Earfquake” and Drake’s “Pain 1993”, the official single “@ Meh” from last April, and several popular leaks, including “Cancún”, “Molly” and, of course, “Kid Cudi / Pissy Pamper”. Baby Voice Carti almost scans as a vocal version of the psychedelic and amniotic fizz of producer Pi’erre Bourne, which permeated Die Lit and shaped Carti’s 2017 hits “Magnolia” and “wokeuplikethis”.
Although Baby Voice Carti appears several times on Whole Lotta Red, on songs like “Teen X,” “JumpOutTheHouse,” and “New N3on”, he mostly rides on the bench, as the album is more concerned with realizing that Carti Lost boys fandom and developing his identity as a vampire rockstar. The opening album “Rockstar Made” roars with popped 808s and barbed synthesizers that promise violence; as Carti enters her routine of varied repetition and syllables cut aggressively, the beat pushes her voice into unknown territory. He chokes out spitting as if his windpipe has withered into a dry shell. As he exchanges a guttural war cry for another in a series of abrasive tonal changes, “Rockstar Made” comes into focus as a kind of exercise – a presentation of Carti’s notable talents as a vocal contortionist that will continue throughout the album.
Carti has long been expressed in the visual language of metal and hardcore punk. Tattoos in honor of anarchism, Bad Religion and the Finnish gothic rock band HIM adorn his chest and arms. O Die Lit Case and the video “RIP”, which respectively portrays Carti going around in a mosh pit and performing in the middle of one, are directly inspired by old black and white photos of Bad Brains and GBH shows. O Whole Lotta Red cover is a tribute to the influential 70s punk zine Strike, and the merchandise on the album includes many satanic and metal themed shirts. In 2017, Lil Uzi Vert suggested that Carti make these choices for purely aesthetic reasons. “He is on another planet”, Uzi commented. “He’s a troll. Everyone thinks they’re listening [punk], but he is not listening to anyone. He’s not listening to anyone. ”Whether Carti is making a stand when he checks the names of Black Flag, Slayer and Hendrix is a moot point. Whole Lotta Red successfully distills pure performance, spectacle and catharsis of metal and hardcore punk; Carti, with his bold vocal demonstrations of tearing the larynx, joins the musical ranks of artists like Rico Nasty and his personal troll Mario Judah, two shape-shifters who have gained popularity by consciously combining the humor of these trapped vocal traditions and tropes.
Whole Lotta Red notably marks a breakthrough for the producer of Working on Dying F1lthy, whose heavy distortion in highlights like “Stop Breathing” and “On That Time” provides much of the album’s adrenalic punk energy. His beats set the tone for the first 12 songs, a turbulent sequence that practically exists for the unique purpose of mosh. The second half, which features the album’s only two Pi’erre beats, as well as the production of the Dutch collective Hyperpop and producer Art Dealer for “Long Time”, approaches the consistency and effervescent 16-bit trap of Die Lit.
Between shocking track sequencing (including DJ Akademiks’ inexplicable special appearance in the first 30 seconds of “Control”, an otherwise beautiful song), Carti’s fast, chameleon changes in cadence, timbre and phrasing and his permanent smokescreen of “sharp” ad-libs, Whole Lotta Red is designed to keep the listener on edge. In “M3tamorfose”, Carti repeats the word “metamorphosis” in a frantic tone, dramatically modulating its tone and emphasizing strange syllables each time in a way that suggests that a truly horrific transformation is taking place. In transport, Bon Iver-sampling nearest “F33l Lik3 Dyin”, he sings ecstatically about his mother’s support: “My mother always knew I was a star / Sacrifices every day / She gave me the keys to her only car / I took that bitch and I went far ”- reserving an unexpected and spectacular melodic leap for that bitch. It is a choice that defies all logical explanation and is indelibly marked in the listener’s brain. Those kinds of prison moments are everywhere Whole Lotta Red. Playboi Carti – Gen Z’s response to Nosferatu – executes emotions, alternates between them and disguises them with an unsettling ease. He was never more enigmatic.