Playboi Carti recently released his new album “Whole Lotta Red” after a two-year hiatus, much to the excitement of his fans. Many hyped the album up in the weeks preceding its release, perhaps putting unreasonable expectations on it as a result. As a casual listener of rap music, I was curious. Unfortunately, the 24 new songs seemed to prioritize quantity over quality and were, to put it mildly, a letdown.
The first song, “Rockstar Made,” sets the tone for the rest of the album. It features a glitchy, highly-synthesized instrumental that is fun to listen to and is worth replaying the song for. However, the instrumental is its only strength. The lyrics are repetitive, and Playboi Carti frequently alternates between his normal autotuned voice and a strange, hissing tone, making for an uncomfortable listening experience. The lyrics and voice are recurring issues throughout the album, which has several songs I could barely listen through. However, the edgy style that Playboi Carti seems to prefer could appeal to some listeners, and its repetitive nature could bring it some popularity as a TikTok audio.
“Go2DaMoon” is arguably the best song on the album, with an instrumental containing a sampled violin loop and a very strong verse by Kanye West, who is featured in the song. The second half of the song, however, is nearly ruined by Playboi Carti’s bizarre rapping. “Slay3r” is a decent listen due to its instrumental and relatively tame vocals. Both “New N3on” and “Vamp Anthem” are catchy as well because of their creative instrumentals and decent lyrics.
These are probably the only songs I could listen through to the end. Others, though they often feature very catchy instrumentals, are unbearably repetitive and are a struggle to listen through to the end. For example, Playboi Carti repeats the phrase “When I go to sleep, I dream ‘bout murder” a whopping twelve times in the song “No Sl33p,” which is only a minute and thirty seconds long. He struggles with repetition again in “New Tank,” where almost every single lyric is repeated twice in a row. The song’s only redeeming feature are the lines “I got me some thots / They thought I was gay,” which gave me a good laugh before I pressed skip.
Many of the other songs simply are not memorable, blurring together in a haze of synths and heavily-autotuned vocals. Some, such as “Meh” and “JumpOutTheHouse,” sound promising until Playboi Carti begins rapping. Other songs are barely distinguishable from each other, and I didn’t even realize they had ended until I checked Spotify and noticed that the next track was playing. Overall, the album felt underdeveloped, as though Playboi Carti had thrown all 24 songs together in a week. Half the songs felt more like ideas than fully-developed tracks, and I had the feeling that Playboi Carti was shouting out whatever came to mind in the moment. This may have been a strong deviation from mainstream rap, but it is a poor attempt at music and resulted in an album that could only be described as messy. The instrumentals are the selling point of many of the songs, and it is unfortunate that Playboi Carti’s vocal gymnastics absolutely butcher a majority of them. Although there are a few decent songs thrown into the mix, “Whole Lotta Red” is a grating, joyless listening experience and one that I would be hesitant to repeat.