Nick Harling
Contributing Writer
While it functioned as a finale of sorts for a tumultuous year, this past Christmas day also brought an end to one of the most intense sagas shrouding the hip-hop sphere in 2020: the release of Playboi Carti’s sophomore album, Whole Lotta Red (WLR). After endless teasing — including a string of delays — that drew the ire of his wildly loyal fanbase, what Carti has produced is an album that is sure to complete a tandem of cult classics that started with his record label debut, Die Lit. Though Die Lit has its skeptics, WLR was immediately met with even more polarization, with social media quick to eviscerate it because it sounds “unfinished” or to declare it a masterpiece that will only be properly understood by the masses down the line. While I don’t fully subscribe to either opinion, I tend to fall more so into the latter camp.
Love him or hate him, one thing is true about Carti: his music is enticing as hell. WLR is no exception. The opener, “Rockstar Made,” wastes absolutely no time in assaulting your eardrums with thumping bass, creating an atmosphere in which Carti’s strained vocals and sporadic delivery make complete sense. The same is the case with “Stop Breathing,” a best-song contender and one that legitimately makes my throat hurt vicariously through Carti’s aggressive shouting and unabashed use of ad-libs. It’s wonderfully abrasive, posing a stark but nice contrast to songs like “Beno!” and “Slay3r,” where he effortlessly glides over more glitzy, cutesy instrumentals that should tempt even Carti’s biggest haters to bounce around.
It is worth mentioning that these songs all fit within the first half of the whopping 63-minute run-time (comprised of 24 songs), a quality that has made many listeners describe WLR as a tale of two halves, and an inconsistent one at that. It’s a fair assessment considering songs like “Place” and “Vamp Anthem” hit with significantly less impact than face-melters like “On That Time,” but WLR nonetheless manages to distinguish itself from the growing batch of hip-hop records that trade concision for streaming numbers. While the good tracks do outweigh the less impressive ones, the algorithm goes deeper.
On “Go2DaMoon,” an odd but suspenseful song structure is matched perfectly by an equally wild Kanye West verse (get better, Kanye). The cascading keys on the “Teen X” entrance, which allows Carti — this time joined by the legendary Future — to produce a genuinely good song while literally just sounding insanely high while on the mic. These two examples essentially function as microcosms of the album as a whole; they are so intriguing because it’s impossible to make sense of them, and they are artistic statements because they are completely unrelenting and thoroughly intoxicating. The same qualities that make it riddled with imperfections are also what make WLR a definitive success, one that solidifies Carti as an essential artist and promises that the comically hostile arguments surrounding his work will persist until further notice.