It has been just over a year since Jordan Carter, or better known as Playboi Carti dropped his highly anticipated second album ‘WHOLE LOTTA RED’, but how has the project aged throughout 2021 into 2022? Executively produced by Kanye West, fans were certainly eager to hear what Carti & Ye had been cooking up, and with a Christmas day release it was a present for more than most.
The first song really sets the tone for the rest of the project. ‘Rockstar Made’. Almost straight from the first second you are hit with extremely intense and booming trap drums, with Carti entering with his more than familiar baby voice and adlibs. With such a gritty and dark introduction, it was only the start.
Kanye West features on the second track on the album ‘Go2DaMoon’ with a string section that sounds like it’s straight out of Dracula, extremely eerie sounding. Kanye never fails to bring a comedic side to his bars with. ‘’You always askin’ for Buddha, you a Budapest (Ayy)’’…make of that what you will.
And then we arrive at ‘Stop Breathing’. This track is quite something. If you ever want to experience a mosh pit like no other, then I advise you to see this song performed live. I feel like for the whole 3 minutes and 38 seconds this song plays for, that Playboi Carti was trying to have a fight with his microphone whilst in the booth. The vocals, the lyrics, the beat it’s so FIERCE. I wouldn’t even begin to describe what genre of music this song fits under, it’s a sort of Hip-Hop and Punk blend? I would be kidding myself if this wasn’t my favourite song to drive to right now.
‘JumpOutTheHouse’ is certainly an acquired taste and those who haven’t heard any of Jordan’s music before would probably question what on earth is going on. Playboi Carti takes his popular and distinct baby voice to the next level, to the point that I cannot understand the words he’s pronouncing. I just about understood jump out the house as this is the title of the song. It does seem more of a filler track on the album, but with over 16 million streams on Spotify alone, who am I to say otherwise? The beat is solid though.
‘New Tank’ is yet another one of those intense tracks that feels laced with some sort of narcotic. Produced by F1lthy, Carti brags on his expensive lifestyle. The title of the track refers to a tank that Kanye purchased for Carti before the release of the album (pictured below).
‘Vamp Anthem’…or the theme tune to your favourite Vampire movie? Either way I am astounded that Carti was able to sample this a not make it sound cheesy or cliché. The organ is taken from ‘Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Toccata and Fugue in D Minor’, I imagine he didn’t expect it to be turned into a track on one of raps biggest albums of the past few years when he wrote it back in…1708.
The next song that really caught my attention was ‘Sky’. It is more generic sounding than the rest of the album, it’s a simple trap song with a catchy hook that is almost guaranteed to stick in your head.
The final track on the album ‘F33l lik3 Dyin’ is a nice change of pace to finish of the project. Consisting of a soul sample from Bon Iver’s 2019 track “iMi,”. Carti ventured into a deeper side of his lyrics speaking on his breakup from former partner and mother of his child, Iggy Azalea.
The big elephant in the room for me person is the somewhat lack of features. With only three features from the before mention Kanye West, Future and Kid Cudi it did surprise me. Fans were hoping for a new track with Lil Uzi Vert as both Carti and Uzi have made some fan favourites before, but it wasn’t to be on this album. Furthermore, there were at least 20-30 leaked tracks before than album came out that didn’t make it on to the final project so fans will be hoping to see them fully released at some point.
Overall, I extremely enjoyed this album, it showed a real sense of creativeness and going outside of the box when it comes to modern day trap music. I hope Playboi Carti continues to push boundaries and find new sounds within his genre.
You can listen to ‘WHOLE LOTTA RED’ below.
JL