Originally published January 1, 2021.

Front Seat

This is what's driving hip-hop this week…. Playboi Carti’s new album, Whole Lotta Red.

The Atlanta rapper slow rolled his album’s release and on Christmas Eve the project finally arrived to mixed reviews. Carti was trending on Twitter over the reception to the album and allegations he broke from the holiday plans with his family. Personal life aside, what’s to make of the fuss over Whole Lotta Red?

Back Seat

Respect my mind or die from lead shower.

After a slow rollout, the Atlanta rapper finally released his long-anticipated third major-label project, and second album, Whole Lotta Red, on December 25th. He had teased fans with cryptic notes and built up expectations for the follow-up to 2017’s Die Lit. That project itself was a strong follow-up to his debut mixtape, the self-titled Playboi Carti, which put him on the map with a co-sign from A$AP Rocky and the breakout “Magnolia.”

And, according to Iggy Azalea, Carti was supposed to be spending the holiday with his former boo thing and their baby, Onyx. 

But.... 

Let’s just say he got a bag of coals under his tree when he woke up on Christmas. 

Carti found himself trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons on the 25th. Iggy went ham on him via social media for pulling out of their holiday plans and instead laying up with a familiar mistress. And the feedback to Whole Lotta Red was a whole lotta nah. 

While Carti was largely out of the public eye since Die Lit, he left that project cycle on a high with positive reviews and afterward he was active enough with a string of strong guest appearances on songs by Drake, Gunna and Tyler, The Creator. 

So why, exactly, was the feedback to his new collection so fiercely negative?

No one, not even Carti himself, would mistake him for a lyricist on the level of Kendrick or J.Cole. I don’t even think his diehard fans would compare him to contemporaries like Lil Uzi Vert or Young Thug. He’s neither as creative as the two nor as dexterous with his flow to vacillate between melody and bars likes them. 

Carti at his best, though, is an amalgamation of a number of styles that grew on the fringes of hip-hop’s center over the past few years. He’s a mumble rapper, who topically minds some of the Soundcloud rap terrain, and has an ear for Trap like his ATL brethren. It helps that he often works with a quality batch of producers, most notable, Pi’erre Bourne. This combination places Carti in a class all his own. 

The safest descriptor to apply to Carti, however, is most likely a Soundcloud rapper and its predilection for a rock aestheticism (Case in point, Whole Lotta Red’s album cover pays homage to rock rag Slash [link].). But unlike Trippie Redd or the late XXXTentacion, Carti didn’t define the feel of that era as much as he sampled from it. Whole Lotta Red then is his first foray into stamping his own DNA onto his work. 

He opens with “Rockstar Made,” which trades in some of Carti’s usual melody for a more punchier flow. Early collaborations with Kanye (“Go2DaMoon”) and Cudi offer mixed results. On the former, Carti cedes most of the record to an uninspired ‘Ye verse with only a mild coda himself to take the song out. The latter is the opposite, with Cudi closing our “M3tamorphasis” with a standout verse and the pair’s high/low harmonies giving the song resonant feeling after Carti’s choppy opennig. 

Whola Lotta Red has a healthy tracklist, clocking in at 24 tracks and just over an hour of listening time. For my liking, though, the first half of the album left a lot to be desired. Generally speaking, the front side of Whole Lotta Red suffers from what feels like a lack of form to most of the records, where Carti drones on too long in chants (“New Tank”) or he exits too quickly when he catches a lick on a 16 (“No Sl33p”). It’s a melange of fits and starts. 

It wasn’t until about track 13, “New N3on,” that things started to find any semblance of a shape toward a larger vision. 

“Control,” with its Akademiks pre-amble almost serves as the proper album intro. Aside from providing basic info on its album executive producers, (Kanye West and Matthew Williams of Givenchy), the record sets a foundation for Carti’s soul searching. Art Dealer, Starboy and Outtatow lay the groundwork for “Control” and Art Dealer handles much of the back side standouts on the album (“King Vamp,” “Sky” and “Not Playing.”) Pi’erre Bourne also emerges, soundtracking “Place” and ILoveUIHateU.” 

But the second half of Whole Lotta Red isn’t just a producer’s showcase. Here, Carti finds his voice (yes, even some of the baby warble he’s known for) and utilizes different flows and deliveries to evoke a melancholy range of emotion.  

Perhaps the best song on the album is the last track, “F33l Lik3 Dyin.” Over sparse production, Carti embraces the finite nature of life (“Everyday I’m dyin’/Uh, rockstar shit like I’m Jimi Hendrix….I can’t fall, gotta stand tall) while seeking out his place in the world. It’s not an unusual album capper, however, its placement, along with most of the other standouts, toward the end of the project is increasingly rare these days. Whereas during his Soundcloud days, that platform offered a degree of accepted experimentation, today, Spotify and other DSP’s can be unforgiven toward an artist that refuses to place their best work first. 

With Whole Lotta Red it isn’t as easy to chalk things up to live by the platform, die by the platform. It’s a noble effort by a talent artist that emerged from a scene that while he didn’t dominate, he certainly left an imprint. With peers like JuiceWRLD and XXX no longer here and the vestige of that grouping’s notoriety is left with traces of its influences. Carti chose not to pick up the pieces and instead move forward, exploring what he has to offer. He may not have delivered his best album, but years from now we’ll be able to say Whole Lotta Red was his most important work. 

Trunk

Music, links, podcasts and videos I'm checking for.

“The Mask of Doom” - A noncomformist rapper’s second act. [Link]

I also wanna make note of Pharrell’s Drink Champs podcast interview. My brothers Bonsu Thompson and Datwon Thomas recently chopped it up on B’s “Fan of a Friend” IG series and Datwon made mention of what he called “peerism” to differentiate what Noreaga does from what traditional music journalists like we do. I thought it was a snappy way to describe what I often notice and experienced in my career—I could never get away with, for example, asking a bad question and getting a good answer. But say, my former co-worker, Sway, asked a dud, it’s a different thing coming from a peer than it it from someone else. Even if the rapport is to the point where I could credibly say, Oh, Drake, that’s my man. Oh, Cole, we’re cool. Doesn’t always mean I’ll get the same response from a brick of a inquiry. There’s pros and cons to it, but that’s a conversation for another day. Anyway, if you haven’t already, check it out. Nore does a remarkable job leading the conversation and Pharrell is in rare form. For my money, the one hour mark and the two hour mark are some notable spots where it gets lively. [Link]

Late last year, NPR Music launched an ambition podcast, “Loud Than A Riot,” to explore the link between hip-hop and mass incarceration. I though there were some incredible highs (the Mac Phipps saga) and some low points in terms of execution. Overall, though, I’m glad it exists. It’s important to our culture we have a variety of story in different formats. After the pod’s launch, NPR’s public editor’s office reached out to me and a few others to talk about the show. Check it out. [Link]

Backseat Freestyle is written and produced by Jayson Rodriguez for Smarty Art, LLC. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, feel free to email me: [email protected]. And follow me:

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