Album Review: Whole Lotta Red

There is perhaps no musical artist in today’s cultural scene who can deftly shapeshift with more volatility than Playboi Carti. His ability to sprint in one direction, stop on a dime, and pivot to another in any number of wild, unforeseen ways, has contributed immensely to his mystique. Only a few months after releasing his 2018 album Die Lit, Carti began recording his next, which he proclaimed would be a more “alternative” and “psyched out” project that would propel his sound into uncharted territory. A few months later, in May 2019, fans leaked several songs he was looking to include on the album on YouTube, SoundCloud, and TikTok. Unreleased tracks such as “Pissy Pamper,” “Opium,” and “Taking My Swag” racked up millions of listens across myriad platforms, driving Carti to remake the album from scratch — yet another testament to his improvisational virtuosity as an artist. Then, in April 2020, Carti dropped “@ Meh,” which he purported to be his upcoming album’s lead single; in one more bewildering about-face, he would ultimately exclude the track on the final project.

Thus, it is only fitting that Carti’s relentless versatility is just as prominently displayed in Whole Lotta Red as it is in the whirlwind of events that culminated in its creation, and the opening track, “Rockstar Made,” functions as a potent overture to the album’s twisting turbulence. In the track, Carti’s vocal adeptly careens with cataract force from his signature “baby voice” — imparted within a lighter, higher register that is equal parts delicate and shrill — to a darker, more serrated tone laced with intentional straining and cracking. His chameleonic acrobatics are amplified tenfold in their visceral extravagance against a bold backdrop of clipping 808 instrumentals and menacing minor synth lines; the effect of Carti abrasively rasping out every last drop of sound from his being, as if his contorted vocal cords have been eviscerated from hours of screaming the song’s lyrics, transcends performance and comes to embody the artistic experience. “Rockstar Made” thus exemplifies the most enthralling aspect of Whole Lotta Red: it masterfully explores the multitudes of complex identities and sounds that Carti adroitly weaves his work with, paving the way for a musical masterpiece unlike any other.

The album’s first three tracks — “Rockstar Made,” the Kanye West feature “Go2DaMoon,” and the Gucci Mane-inspired “Stop Breathing” — showcase Carti at his rawest and roughest. He hisses, “I take my shirt off and all the h*es stop breathing,” yet he sounds as if he is the one who is on the cusp of losing his air, especially as he gasps out arresting lines like “Ever since my brother died / I been thinkin’ ‘bout homicide.” Carti’s trademark minimalistic writing — with choruses and hooks as repetitive as a Philip Glass string quartet — both contrasts with and complements this dramatic delivery style. Instead of unwittingly falling victim to meaningless tautology, Carti’s lyrics daringly lean into repetition with the conscious intent of instilling every single reiteration of every single syllable with an ineluctable dynamism. The risk pays off in spades, as the high-pressure tracks on Whole Lotta Red crackle indelibly with eclectic energy.

Just as Carti begins to lull the listener into his rhythm with the album’s opening trio of tracks, he abruptly yanks us into a different dimension — a grating outro filled with rasped repetitions of “whet” suddenly segues into “Beno!”, which opens with a cutesy and whimsical synth descant that would not sound out of place playing through the aisles of a candy store. He shifts his aggressive flow to a playful lilt, donning his idiosyncratic “baby voice” to maneuver through more metrically meticulous moments. Despite their lyrical complexity, lines like “All black 2-3, LeBron with the heat / I was just in Miami in the Rolls Royce geeked” begin to sound like simple playground chants and nursery rhymes because of the breadth of Carti’s sonic inventory. As the album progresses, we are plunged even deeper into this funhouse tour of musical madness. The sinister “Vamp Anthem” warps Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” into a harsh trap beat; the saccharine chord progression and pulsing instrumental of “Control” evoke the sound of early 2010s dance-pop; soft samples of Bon Iver lend a transcendental tranquility to the album’s closing track, the indie folk-influenced “F33l Lik3 Dyin.” Yet, as we are tossed asunder by the hurricane that is Whole Lotta Red, we never quite feel like we are losing sight of the album’s core meaning and sound — it is the perfect storm, an illusion of chaos orchestrated with scientific precision by our maestro.

Whole Lotta Red reaches its most immaculate heights when Carti acquiesces to the music’s hypnotic power, letting his innermost words and feelings spill out of him, unbridled and unchained. “Slay3r,” which features exquisite production by Juberlee and Roark Bailey, cradles Carti back and forth with its carefree and cartoonish ambiance, and he playfully responds with uncharacteristically jocular refrains of “Whole lotta mob sh*t / Whole lotta mob, whole lotta mob sh*t.” The juxtaposition of such a jaunty sound with the track’s devilishly dark subject matter and inspiration — the song pays homage to the thrash metal band Slayer — palpably demonstrates how twisted Carti’s sense of irony becomes when unleashed in full force. As listeners, we are even treated to an exploration of his vulnerable side; on the deceptively chill “ILoveUIHateU,” Carti pours out, “I mix all of my problems and Prometh’ until I roll on my death bed / Don’t get close, uh, baby, don’t get too close.” This riveting confession — of his potentially lethal drug use, of his fear of emotional intimacy and availability, of his awareness and deliberate ignorance of his self-destructive tendencies — paints a different picture of Carti than his “rockstar” songs do. We have peeled back the façade of Carti the artist to reveal Carti, the human.

The album reaches its zenith at the start of its final stretch with the track “Sky,” which is an ode to substance abuse and its escapist utility. After a disorienting intro that sounds vaguely like video game boss music, Carti comes in on the chorus with a mesmerizingly restrained sound that still sounds like it is on the verge of losing control. After tenuously riding the beat through the track’s opening, Carti hits its next section, which fittingly begins with an invocation to “Wake up!”, and he loosens up and begins to derail in the best way possible. Carti’s flow loses its smooth sheen and slowly becomes erratic and syncopated, navigating through intricate polyrhythms and oscillating between being behind the beat and being in front of it. He delivers lines like “Can’t f*ck with nobody, not even my shadow / I got on Ed Hardy, she got on stilettos” with a captivating fiendishness that puts the listener on edge in spite of the track’s relatively tame vocal and dreamy Travis Scott-like sound.

Whole Lotta Red garnered intensely polarizing reception upon release, with many diehard Carti fans proclaiming that the album is too splintered and possesses no particular unifying sound. While these traits may be undesirable in the rap mainstream, they are precisely the unique traits that give Whole Lotta Red its je ne sais quoi. The album is nothing short of manic and unhinged; it is a treacherous labyrinth, filled with everything, from Baroque polyphony to Atlanta hip-hop, and elevated by the incomparable temerity of Carti’s experimental performance. As he expresses in “Punk Monk” with the declarations, “I just worry ‘bout me” and “I don’t rap, I write poems,” Carti deeply values pure authenticity and innovative brazenness, and his new album reflects his commitment to keeping his head down, blocking out the noise, and carving out his own path in the rap industry. Whole Lotta Red stands by itself in today’s popular music landscape as a generational work of transcendent genius, unparalleled in its inventiveness, and listeners would do well to look past the smoke and mirrors of Carti’s carefully constructed madhouse to unearth the deeply emotional richness of his work.