Now, with the unflinchingly experimental Whole Lotta Red, Playboi Carti hopes to lay the groundwork for the future. The most exciting way to listen to Carti, for the past several years, has been through the vantage point of his mostly young and dedicated listeners. If you type Carti’s name into YouTube, you’re greeted with dozens of pages of fan-uploaded compilations of leaks, snippets, and remixes. Despite not releasing anything for years, he was able to adapt to the language of a generation online. Nowadays, everyone raps with some version of what’s been dubbed “baby voice” - the high-pitched, ad-lib-filled style that surfs on treacly, ethereal production - but Carti’s unique vocal acrobatics remain unmatched. Since the release of 2018’s Die Lit, his impact on the shape and tenor of modern rap music has been hard to ignore. “‘Punk Monk’ is just an anthem of being alone in this game, and the people that you got, you can keep them right there because that’s all you need.”Ĭarti has reason to see himself as a trendsetter. “Some people don’t know how to be alone, but I love it,” Carti explains. The 24-year-old rapper has long professed punk-rock inspirations, but now he’s reconciling them with something that resembles inner peace. Conceptually, the song represents a formal juxtaposition of vibes, like meditating in a mosh pit.
“They tried to turn me into a white boy, but I’m not Lil Dicky,” he growls in his newly minted vocal register - a grizzly squawk that sounds untethered from the limitations of human vocal cords. There are devilishly candid assessments of his frustrations with the music industry, with Carti naming names. It’s a track where the notoriously tight-lipped Carti gives listeners a glimpse into what he’s been thinking.
“Punk Monk” is also the title of one of the more memorable cuts from Whole Lotta Red, which topped the charts upon release in December. “It’s a city that I can get lost in,” he says. He splits his time between living in Atlanta and flying to California to see his son, though he’s plotting a move to New York, eyeing places on the Lower East Side. Carti says he barely even sleeps, preferring the Zen of the creative process.
The rapper has an almost religious devotion to the studio, spending every day there his current project is the deluxe version of his recent album Whole Lotta Red. Playboi Carti tells me his mood of late can be described as “punk monk.” He means it sort of holistically.
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