The Mycenaean

On March 14, 2025, the rapper Playboi Carti released his third studio album, MUSIC, which his fans had anticipated for almost half a decade. Featuring 30 songs and appearances from other well-established artists like Travis Scott, The Weekend, Future, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug, Jhené Aiko, Ty Dolla Sign, and Skepta, it provides the listener with 77 minutes of non-stop play time.

During the long wait, Carti misled his fans by teasing a release date without actually posting the songs. 

“I hated him for it. He said he was going to drop, but he didn’t because he’s a liar. He definitely just lied to us because he felt like it, he was having fun doing it,” said Jason Lankford, junior.

“I mean I can’t really say that I’m surprised. He has been doing this for a minute now,” said Reynolds Garnas, senior.

“I feel like it was all a wild marketing scheme in order to give himself this mysterious persona for profit,” said Bailey Thompson, senior.

Judging by the careless history of the rapper, no one really expected that he was truly going to release it on March 14. But he proved people wrong, causing a mass wave of rap fans going crazy over this release. Fans had high hopes for the album, but unfortunately, not everyone’s expectations were met.

“It is horrible. I think he has like four good songs in there, maybe five. Production was not good. He made all his songs extremely corny,” said Garnas.

“I think it was thrown together very hastily,” said Thompson.

The album had 3 different titles, first being referred to as Narcissist, then Antagonist, and finally, I AM MUSIC, or simply MUSIC. Hints of the album began shortly after his last album “Whole Lotta Red” was released, with the first release date planned for September 13, 2021.

New sounds

In this album, Playboi Carti continued to nurture his new sound, which he introduced a little over a year ago, mixing it with older well-known sounds. Featuring energetic, dark, nostalgic, and EDM-inspired trap beats, the album delivers a variety of different moods and styles. 

“It’s a 10 out of 10. He dropped 30 songs and 40 of them were good. It was just an amazing album,” said Lankford.

“The features on it are just absolutely ‘bombazzling’. I don’t think there has ever been a more atrocious feature I’ve heard from Kendrick. He tried to do a dark, mysterious voice thing, and it just didn’t work,” said Garnas

Sadly, the lyrical messages in the songs are pretty much the same and shallow. Most of them contain misogyny, promotion of drugs, love for money, and living a lavish lifestyle. 

“I think the lyrics of it were some of the worst I’ve heard in my life,” said Garnas

I do wish he had better lyricism, but, at the same time, his words are often hard to understand. In my opinion, the part that matters most is his flow and delivery.

“Carti can say anything and it’ll sound good. [His best aspects are] his flow, or his beat selection,” said Lankford.

“[The best part of Carti is] the energy, I guess. He doesn’t really do anything notable in his songs, other than know how to rile up a crowd of 13 year olds,” said Thompson.

Brilliant money-making scheme?

While artists make music from concerts, song plays, and merch, another big source of income can be features. In short, an artist can pay another artist a certain amount of money for them to appear on the song. The biggest factors in how much money an artist might charge is their popularity and availability. 

Some say that Carti manipulated this by building a mysterious presence online over the last 4 years. People gained more interest in him, as he limited the music he put out. This is a perfect example of supply and demand: the less he put out, the more valuable his voice became. His fans were more and more excited to hear it, and artists were willing to spend more money to have Playboi Carti on their songs. 

“He literally switched up his whole entire personality, his wardrobe, he signed new people to the label. A result of that is more attention and fame. For example, he went on Adin Ross’ stream. He got paid $2 million just for him to stay for five minutes, not say a word, and turn off all the lights. I don’t know who he thinks he is,” said Garnas.

Playboi Carti and Adin Ross live streaming together on February 5, 2024. Ross paid Carti $2 million and a Ferrari to stay there for an hour. (Photo courtesy of Adin Ross)

“He disappeared from music for five years, so he could start charging $2 million for features, and, indeed, he disrespected all of his loyal fans for profit,” said Thompson.

The exact cost of the rapper’s feature is not confirmed. Some people say he gives them away for free to whoever he wants, others have said that it sometimes passes the $1 million dollar mark. Carti himself in his song “CRUSH” stated that he charged “two mil’ for a feature.”

“It probably was a business decision at first, and then he started dragging it. Carti liked doing it. He probably would’ve made more money if he dropped all those years ago”, said Lankord.

“He’s not a vampire. He’s a normal guy, who sits on the couch and laughs to the bank,” said Thompson.

Ratings

Leesville students have mixed feelings about the album, some praising it, others completely hating it. This trend continues among music journalists as well. Pitchfork gave the album a 7.7 out of 10. “A strong 3 to a light 4” out of 10 was given by The Needle Drop. Similarly, Medium rated the album a 4/10. 

In my opinion, Playboi Carti’s MUSIC is a solid 7/10, with the possibility to ‘grow on me’ even more and get up to an 8/10. I loved Skepta’s verse on “TOXIC”, I enjoyed listening to the noisy “POP OUT”, and “BACKD00R” arose a sudden joy from the first listen. Other songs I liked were “CRANK”, “GOOD CREDIT”, “JUMPIN”, “OLYMPIAN”, “OPM BABI”, “DIS 1 GOT IT”.