On the typical Friday morning when new music is released, I find myself scrolling through Twitter just to get a sense of the fan reaction to the new music that had just been released. So like clockwork, in the early hours of Christmas morning, here I am, in bed, scrolling through Twitter, looking for fan reactions to the new albums that just came out. To my surprise, there were a lot of people trashing the long-awaited album from Playboi Carti, “Whole Lotta Red.” For context, aside from Lil Uzi Vert’s “Eternal Atake” this latest offering from Carti is the most anticipated album of the past two and a half years. So with this context in mind, I found myself wondering, did Carti fans like myself put too many expectations on this long-awaited album because of the wait? This was a question I didn’t get to answer until I heard the music myself, and the answer is a resounding no.
Let me start off by saying that on the spectrum of fandom, I am a casual Carti fan who leans more to being a die-hard fan. I think Carti has carved out his own niche to include great beat selection paired with catchy lyrics and flows while still surprising fans with how melodic he can be at times. I think Carti is potentially one of the most underrated rappers despite his lack of traditional rap skills. This being said, I found myself massively disappointed in the product that was “Whole Lotta Red.”
Setting aside the two and a half year wait from Carti’s last project “Die Lit,” the release of “Whole Lotta Red” seemed premature. I think there were some good concepts throughout the project, but I don’t think they were executed as well as they should’ve been for any album, let alone an album with such hype behind it. In short, it felt rushed and while certain songs get the job done, most of the songs left me questioning what the intent behind them was. This being said, Carti did mention before this album dropped that it would be an experimental album and that is 100% true. However, experimental doesn’t always mean good.
Another angle to take when thinking about “Whole Lotta Red,” is the sudden change in sound from catchy beats and flows to an attempt to be a modern-day Hip-Hop Rockstar. I’m not in the business of telling artists what they should and shouldn’t make, however, I am in the business of explaining why something will or won’t work. I think it was a mistake to have such a drastic change in sound so suddenly. Playboi Carti isn’t an artist like Lil Uzi Vert or Tyler, The Creator who have given fans multiple vibes and sounds for years. It’s easy for fans to digest an album like “IGOR,” when you’ve created albums like “Cherry Bomb” and “Flower Boy” back to back. However, in the case of Carti, whose projects “Playboi Carti” and “Die Lit” feature a good mix of the same vibe being kept fresh, it’s easy for fans to settle in and pigeonhole Carti as the artist he was on those projects.
Because of the potential pigeonholing that may have taken place over Carti’s career, I think it would’ve been smarter to do a traditional rollout with singles that sound more like the vibe of the album. The only single we got from Carti before the release of “Whole Lotta Red” was “@ Meh” partially produced by Jetsonmade which sounded like the next evolution of the sound Carti had become known for. So there was nothing aside from Carti’s IG lives to suggest such a sudden turn from the sound that made Carti become one of the mainstay artists in the game. Fans typically don’t like change and it takes a while for them to warm up to it, which is something that should have been kept in mind during the rollout for “Whole Lotta Red.”
Overall, for as disappointing as “Whole Lotta Red” proved to be, I don’t think it’s time for people to write off Playboi Carti. Artists should experiment and try to push the boundaries of music, however when the boundaries are being pushed artists still need to keep reasonable expectations for what fans are willing to digest. It’s really about balance, like many things in life and unfortunately, in this case, it doesn’t seem like there was a good balance between creativity and logic.
