Breaking down Playboi Carti’s stream-subverting album rollout

A vicious debate rages across the internet this month, with manifestos etched into comment sections and forum threads. Picking the best Playboi Carti single out of the past four weeks is less an objective critical exercise than a musical Rorschach. The orbital synths and strafing hi-hats of “Ur the moon” or the incorporeal horns and thumping 808s of “2024?” The xenomorphic operatics and uncharacteristically slick Travis Scott feature on “BACKR00MS” or the martial stomp and impish toplines of hard-knocking “H00DBYAIR?” (Splitting hairs, I would say “Ur the moon,” “H00DBYAIR,” “2024,” “BACKR00MS” from best to almost-best).

Where Whole Lotta Red exploded 808s and vocal chords, these new singles move from velvety whispers rustling like snowfall to resonant threats booming from the diaphragm. You can hear traces of WLR’s guttural bellows and Die Lit’s nonchalant melodicism — and sometimes, sludgy imprints of Young Thug and Future emerge — in Carti’s flows, but their synthesis and easy cohabitation reflects a heightened musicality. The near-universal acclaim too, a far cry from the polarizing reception to WLR, suggests that Carti has entered rarefied air.

The frenzy for Carti’s forthcoming album, possibly titled Music or I Am Music, is nothing new for longtime acolytes of his label OPIUM. Feverish passion has defined his fanbase ever since the 2015 release of Death In Tune cemented Jordan Carter as a defining star of the SoundCloud set. As the Atlantean rapper has leveled up from backyard shows with Awful Records to fog-drenched arena tours and headlining sets at Rolling Loud, his career has been defined by its silences almost as much as its releases, multiyear stretches devoid of significant official output, punctuated by errant loosies and features.

Against this backdrop, the past month has been disconcertingly prolific and surprisingly telegraphed. British musician and Carti backup dancer Blackhaine will share a post on the OPIUM label account screaming “NEW CARTI TONIGHT,” and a video will appear on YouTube or Instagram the same day. It’s an oddly traditional rollout compared to the no-warning Christmas release of Whole Lotta Red or the 1,2 punch of 2018’s “Love Hurts” releasing 9 days ahead of Die Lit. If you believe the rumors that Carti is dropping a full project this month, then the timeline comes closer to the 2017 unveiling of Playboi Carti, but that record only saw two singles released roughly five weeks ahead of the album.

This reticence has defined Carti’s career for better and worse. The prolonged absences make any Playboi release a major event, every trickle guaranteed a deluge of press coverage and ravenous streams. But it has also made him a preferred target for leakers, who have unspooled hundreds of demos and songs on SoundCloud and YouTube. He isn’t the only artist to have an impending release derailed: collaborators Lil Uzi Vert, Pi’erre Bourne, and Kanye West have all fallen prey to groupbuys and iCloud hacks. But the volume and impact of leaks have taken a harsher toll on Carti’s discography, leaving fan-favorite tracks like “RIP Yams” and “Pissy Pamper” to languish as SoundCloud apocrypha, career landmarks relegated to minor footnotes in Carti’s career. Beyond the art and commerce, there can be an uncomfortably personal tilt to these digital invasions, as when photos of Carti’s three-year-old son Onyx cropped up online, illicitly conjured from someone’s camera roll.

To consider Playboi Carti’s discography — his snowballing chart successes, the litany of leaked songs, the parade of sonic imitators and offspring — is to consider manufactured scarcity in an era of excess. Plenty of artists and celebrities have pivoted away from accessibility, opting for softball magazine covers and hermetic PR campaigns over legitimate interviews and candid social media posting. But even the biggest stars want you to see them shining in theaters and on timelines. The 24/7 march forward of social media cycles demands fit pics and memeable moments, Billboard metrics and new merchandise. By comparison, Carti seems content to skulk around the spotlight.

In interviews, Carti is aloof, offering oblique insight into his creative process. But even these occasional profiles scan as a minor affair, more perfunctory than necessary. This flies in the face of traditional media-celebrity reciprocity, though it is not without precedent. On one level, it reminds me of this deranged Robert Pattinson interview: the important part of the interview is less what he says, but the fact that it happened at all. That has helped Carti broadly avoid the relatability rat race, where celebrities try convincing normal people they aren’t so different after all.

It’s also a throwback to the logic of Old Hollywood: it’s hard to face serious public scrutiny when you rarely face the public to begin with. That would have been helpful five years ago when Carti was asked about his ties to Ian Connor and A$AP Bari; in the wake of felony charges for allegedly choking his pregnant girlfriend, Carti’s aversion to serious press access feels like preemptive damage control, a way of minimizing the professional impact of his personal life. In that sense, the mild anachronism of his ongoing singles campaign carries a whiff of self-interest.

In the decade since the release of BEYONCÉ, surprise drops have become a familiar if uncommon tool for preempting leaks and guaranteed attention, deployed by Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Taylor Swift. It’s a release strategy well suited for popular artists accustomed to fans and press breathlessly following their every move, but it comes with its own limitations compared with the mounting enthusiasm generated when fans have time to get excited about a release further in advance. Carti’s campaign has struck an unusual balance between these ideals, announcing music hours ahead of release, rather than days or weeks. There’s something kind of charming to that though, like making plans for an after-work drink at 10:30 a.m. — the promise of impending dopamine makes the waiting more tolerable.

Enjoying Carti’s newfound musical abundance comes with its own wrinkles. None of these songs have been released to digital service providers (DSPs) like Spotify and Apple Music, leaving the metrics of success in the realm of likes and reshares rather than streams and saves. The YouTube premieres of “2024” and “BACKR00MS” bring to mind the early 2010s heyday of VEVO; an Instagram story featuring DJ Swamp Izzo (“He’s coming!”) elicits memories of poring over DatPiff during a similar timeframe.

Still, Carti isn’t solely drawing on the past for inspiration. The Instagram-exclusive “H00DBYAIR” and “Ur the Moon” invert standard promo: rather than enticing listeners to click a link and head off app, audio and visual fidelity are sacrificed in the name of immediacy. It’s a logical progression from the snippet mania that elevated “Magnolia” to grail status well before it dropped: for Carti fans, a brief video is far more than a casual teaser, but a legitimate part of his broader discography, the same as his leaks. Why would he bother putting new music up on streaming platforms? He knows you’ll take a few minutes to squint at your phone.

Rap Column is a column about rap music by Vivian Medithi and Nadine Smith for The FADER.