At a time when parasocial behavior trumps religion, the kids no longer look to the sky for a deity; they scroll their phones for someone who looks like them. In the eyes of many, that godlike figure is Playboi Carti, rap’s biggest young luminary. To the Atlanta native’s diehard supporters, an arrest for alleged abuse is a call to action, his mugshot a symbol of solidarity. He’s part-novelty, part-leader of men; a master of deceit, and a villain.
Carti’s tendency to shroud himself in mystery is both the key to his allure and his audience’s biggest gripe. For them, the gap between his 2018 debut studio album Die Lit and 2020’s Whole Lotta Red was a grueling exhibition of falsities and hearsay.
Four years have now passed since the cultural reset of WLR and the demand for the rapper’s fourth full-length has reached biblical proportions. In a convoluted saga of name-changes, broken promises, and surprise singles, the album, now known as I Am Music, may be the most anticipated rap release of the decade. Here’s everything you need to know about what’s happened so far.
March 13, 2021
Playboi Carti announces his Whole Lotta Red follow-up record less than three months after its Christmas release. Under an Instagram dump of posh, snow-white ’fit pics, he types out this surprise announcement in his signature style: “LeTs dr0p thiS new Album . w3 noT done.”
August 23, 2021
In another bombshell Instagram post (there’s a lot of these), Carti shares a photo dump captioned “NARCISSIST 09/13/21,”—a project slated for his 25th birthday. This post (and two more that came days after) features a masked figure (presumably Carti) in a barren warehouse with sewing machines and naked mannequins. The pieces on display vary from dark cloaks to Rick Owens–inspired lunar boots to one fat-ass matte black biker helmet. Carti’s ambiguity creates speculation about an album, a clothing line, or both.
September 13, 2021
*nothing*
September 14, 2021
The store on playboicarti.com opens to the public with Narcissist-themed masks, bomber jackets, motorcycle gloves, and the aforementioned helmet priced at a whopping $5,000. Allegedly, this same helmet could be purchased on Alibaba for just $29. And it wasn’t just the helmet; everything on the site looked like it could have been ripped from the Chinese marketplace. Plus, there were no signs of new music. Fans were sick.
September 15, 2021
Carti posts an iMessage screenshot on the platform then known as Twitter of a groupchat with members of his camp. A text he sent claims his website was hacked and the merch was never approved. About 12 hours later, he posts a screenshot of another text message that confirms the presence of an album: “FORGET ABOUT SAMPLE CLEARANCES . DROP NARCISSIST.”
Nobody dropped Narcissist.
April 12, 2022
In a rare cover feature for XXL, months after silently abandoning the Narcissist album, Carti reveals the name for his next record as Music, “because that’s all it is at this point.” Interviewer Vanessa Satten mentions how the unreleased music he played for her features a “deeper voice” than any of his previous work, a tidbit fans quickly latched onto. When asked about Music’s lyrical themes, Carti responds, “Love. Sex. Drugs. I’ve been rapping about going to rehab. I want to go to rehab because I think I’m bipolar.”
December 25, 2022
By the second anniversary of Whole Lotta Red, Carti fans were so thirsty for new music, they were making concept announcements for a new album. The day before WLR turned two, the rapper posted a mirror selfie of an androgynous model dressed in all-black. There was no caption. Placed neatly in the bottom right corner of the photo is a Parental Advisory sticker: an indication of new music. That same night, hip-hop insider DJ Akademiks took to Twitter to post “Carti OTW.”
Christmas Day arrives, and Playboi Carti celebrates with his latest tweet to date: “love all my supporters it’s time.” Jesus weeps, children rejoice, bells ring loud from sea to shining sea. Music is near!
December 26, 2022
*nothing* *again*
May 10, 2023
An unedited video snippet leaks of Playboi Carti and Working on Dying producer F1lthy dancing, in the studio, to a then-unreleased track known as “All Red.” A shorter snippet had been leaked a month prior, and the track is rumored to have been recorded in the wake of his lengthy Whole Lotta Red tour run in 2022. Fans clamor over the major shift in Carti’s vocal cadence to something deeper and more hoarse than his past work.
September 1, 2023
Another coveted snippet from the post–Whole Lotta Red sessions, known as “Killers,” leaks online after fans allegedly pool $10,000 for a leaker to release the song’s complete, CDQ version to the public. Similar to “All Red,” Carti raps here in a husk tone while also shifting in and out of the Auto-Tuned wail for which he’s become known since 2018’s Die Lit.
November 3, 2023
German fashion magazine Numéro Berlin features Carti on the cover. In an interview, he details where he’s been making his upcoming album: “I’ve been recording in Paris, in a cave, for like three months, and all the music that came out of that is just chaotic and crazy. Then, I’m in a glass house, somewhere in the hills… And then, I’m in Atlanta and the tensions are just high and the music is biting.”
December 7, 2023
On his main Instagram story, Carti posts artwork of the phrase “I AM MUSIC” stylized similarly to the infamous Parental Advisory sticker. (Weeks prior, this design motif was carried into his AW23 covershoot for Re-Edition Magazine in which he’s styled in Anna Bolina pieces inspired by the same logo.) Carti also posts the artwork on the feed of @opium_00pium, a secondary account he’s used to spam bitcrushed tour content, Opium promo, and miscellaneous imagery. From this point onward, it’s presumed that I Am Music is the working title for the upcoming album. The I Am Music artwork then becomes Carti’s profile picture, and everyone in his camp responds by making it their profile pictures, too. Fans believe that artists outside of Opium who also made this their profile pic at the time—like Pharrell Williams and underground beatmaker Goxan—joined in on the album sessions.
Akademiks pokes his head back out to stoke the flames online: “Playboi Carti… album coming JANUARY! will be the greatest thing you ever heard.”
December 8, 2023
Carti posts two snippets of the same song to his story, each one lasting no longer than a few seconds. The song features tags from DJ Swamp Izzo, a former DJ and mixtape host for Young Thug who’s made his way into the Opium orbit.
Hours later, Carti releases a surprise music video, for a different song, on his @opium_00pium account. The caption reads, “You can’t judge something if there is no .. criteria.” This becomes the first song he’s released since “@ MEH” in 2020, despite there being no official title or upload to digital streaming platforms. Fans have dubbed the track “Ur the Moon” or “Different Day,” named after the first two words at the start of his verse. Here, he raps in a snakelike whisper over cascading synth pulses, repeatedly hissing, “Seeyuh!,” in between bars. The canine snarl and hellacious production of Whole Lotta Red has dissipated for something sleeker, more vaporous. In the video, he struts and jigs in front of a Lambo truck, wearing an acid green jacket and headpiece instead of his signature all-black.
December 13, 2023
A music video snippet posted to @opium_00pium features a mink-coated Playboi Carti with his arms around Ken Carson, Destroy Lonely, and Homixide Meechie while several other Opium acolytes jump around nearby. This immediately prompts rumors of the first-ever Opium posse cut, a notable feat considering Carti has not released music with any of his label signees up to this point.
December 14, 2023
In a video posted to @opium_00pium, a bald white man yells, “New! *******! Carti! TONIIIGHT!” with a gravelly British accent. This man is known as Blackhaine, an experimental choreographer and musician based in Manchester who’s appeared onstage with Carti at Rolling Loud. Shot in pitch black under street lights, his face is nearly consumed by the shadows. The Parental Advisory sticker plastered onto the video is edited to have a timestamp of 9:30 at the top, indicating when the music was set to drop.
That night, Playboi Carti releases the music video to “2024” on his official YouTube, a victory lap co-produced by Kanye West. The video quickly gets made into an array of you-just-had-to-be-there screencaps: YVL hand-signs, gas station dance circles, the oft-repeated “2024 music” catchphrase. This is Carti’s first released solo track featuring the deep-voice cadence mentioned in the 2022 XXL interview, making him sound damn near like a new artist by verse two.
December 19, 2023
Blackhaine returns to @opium_00pium with another song announcement using the same format. This time, it’s for the highly-anticipated “H00dByAir,” a blistering solo cut initially thought to be the first Opium assembly on wax. The bassline on this Cardo–produced beat could turn a subwoofer into an atom bomb. Like “Different Day,” the video for this track has been posted only to Instagram, depicting Carti’s Opium mob gathering at night under floodlights. “HBA” features some of the most pointed, straightforward rapping of his career, his strained rasp making each bar more sadistic than the last. “I can’t believe I can die,” Carti spits incredulously.
January 1, 2024
In what’s become the official calling card for new Carti music, Blackhaine announces the first collaborative drop in this singles run: “Backr00ms” with Travis Scott. This track is posted to Carti’s official YouTube. Also credited are Sex Is Death and Indiana420Bitch, two creative directors who worked together for the video. Sex Is Death, also a tattoo artist, has worked closely with Carti as a creative consultant since the I Am Music rollout entered full swing. The tactile warbles and pulsating drum rolls of “Backr00ms” lay groundwork for more menacing vocal textures from Carti, his venomous cadence pitter-pattering across the beat. In an empty office space with an armored SUV parked out front, Carti makes bomb threats and plays with wads of cash while Travis does his best No Stylist impersonation.
January 15, 2024
Each passing Blackhaine video on @opium_00pium gets louder and more abrasive. I’d bet money his vocal cords were cooked by the time he announced the IG-exclusive, “EvilJ0rdan,” the previously snippeted track that kicked off the I Am Music loosie marathon. By now, Playboi Carti’s coarse hiss has crystallized into the defining factor of this run, another breakthrough in his evolution of vocal gymnastics. The production on “EvilJ0rdan,” is heavy and grimy, but ultimately a simple four-bar loop co-produced, again, by Cardo. Wearing Hood by Air and wielding a G-Wagon wheel cover like a shield, Carti posts up in the kitchen with his cousin Kee and Atlanta’s revered dancer-turned-rapper, SheLovesMeechie.
March 12, 2024
The end of the loosie parade arrives with a bit of a delay and a change in form. Instead of Blackhaine yelling into a selfie camera in near-darkness, we see a brunette with long braids running to the knocking sound at the start of “Ketamine.” It comes with a sinister music video posted to Carti’s spam account (again), and his cadence on the track is more deranged than ever, bending and squawking like a villain at his wit’s end. Chilling open hats and Ojivolta guitar licks soundtrack a hooded, sedated Carti moping around in a house similar to where Renton would buy heroin in Trainspotting. He waves a gun in a room with a barren mattress and a knife swinging from the ceiling, every bar sounding like a threat: “This bitch ain’t got no vision/I’ma go ahead and give it to her/I just been feelin’ myself/I found Jesus, Christian Dior.”
June 15, 2024
Playboi Carti headlines Cole Bennett’s annual Summer Smash festival, in Chicago, and debuts new music, including the first-ever performance of “All Red.” He also performs the loosely titled unreleased track, “Fuck on My DJ,” another coveted gem for Reddit and Discord lurkers.
June 17, 2024
A short music video snippet of Carti walking in the park with a girl is posted to X by his longtime photographer Gunner Stahl. It’s concise and simple, but it notably kicks off a new crop of Carti raps over soulful sample loops.
September 1, 2024
Carti posts a photo dump wearing a Penny Hardaway Orlando Magic jersey backwards and goes viral for it, prompting the official Magic X account to post a photo of it, telling him to drop the album. For more than a week, he continues to wear backward NBA jerseys and each team (from his hometown Atlanta Hawks, to the Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets) responds by also asking for the album.
September 12, 2024
Carti posts on his main Instagram for the first time since the Narcissist album cover that never was. This time, it’s a collection of various I Am Music–themed vinyl and CD scans with respective graphic overlays on them. The post has the caption:
“I AM MUSIC
THE ALBUM
LINK IN BIO”
The link to Carti’s online store features merch box sets with hats, hoodies, and vinyl copies of I Am Music, despite there still not being an official release date. The site makes note that all items will ship on April 18, 2025.
September 13, 2024
“All Red” is formally released on Carti’s birthday, the first “official” solo release in his catalog since Whole Lotta Red. Expectedly, fans go crazy online while also wearing backward NBA jerseys. It’s been said a million times before, but, on this track, his delivery strikingly resembles Future over F1lthy’s calamitous instrumental. I had a friend earnestly ask me if the line “Upside down cross tat on my neck, shut ’em up” was recorded through an AI voice filter.
To celebrate the “All Red” release, Carti posts an unofficial I Am Music album cover in homage to Lil Wayne’s Dedication mixtape series.
September 15, 2024
Carti posts another snippet to his IG story. This time it’s a video of him playing an unreleased song to a baby in a stroller who dances along, waving his little arms like a traffic guard. Carti mimics him as his icy shards of Auto-Tune plead “How do I know that you down for me?” The beat kinda resembles Ken Carson’s bubbly 2023 sleeper “Pots.”
November 16, 2024
In a joint-headlining event with Travis Scott, at ComplexCon, Carti debuts another new song, this one paying homage to Jay-Z’s “Jigga My Nigga” by proclaiming, “What’s my mothafuckin’ name?”
November 17, 2024
Carti alludes to Ye working on the production for I Am Music at a club performance. “Shoutout to my nigga Kanye,” he says into the mic. “Big bro been making beats and shit, that album gon’ be crazy.”
November 18, 2024
Following a performance at Camp Flog Gnaw, Carti tells a group of fans “I’m tryna do that shit by myself” when asked if the new album will have any features. Just before then, Carti asks them if they want the album to drop in 2024 or in January, to which one dude replies “Whenever you want bro!” Safe to say fans online weren’t rocking with that.
November 20, 2024
Another music video snippet goes up on Carti’s Instagram story with Kanye’s account tagged in the post. Behind studio footage that looks like it was ripped from Nokia phone, Carti’s raw vocals lilt over buoyant sub bass and another soul sample. Between the tied dreads, white tank, and black shades he has on, the Lil Wayne method acting reaches a new level.
November 21, 2024
Playboi Carti drops another single on his spam IG with the caption, “PLAY THIS.” Here, he reverts to Die Lit–era melodies over flowery plucks of synth. There’s no music video, but the thumbnail features a photo of Babyxsosa, the Virginia-born singer/rapper whom he once shouted out on a 2022 loosie with A$AP Rocky called “Sights / Our De$tiny.”
December 12, 2024
Carti posts a music video snippet at the end of a photo dump full of studio session fit pics and money-filled Goyard bags. In the video, he cleans jewelry with a toothbrush and watches Mike Dean do bong rips on Facetime. There are no lyrics in the snippet, only a Kanye-like instrumental passage in which a choir repeats a refrain of “Drugs got me numb/Love got me numb.”
December 15, 2024
For Rolling Loud’s 10-year anniversary (crazy, right?), Carti serves as the headliner for the final night. The build-up to his performance is compounded by RL co-founder Tariq Cherif affirming that I Am Music will be played live. For the performance, Carti pulls out the classics (“Sky,” “Stop Breathing,” “Shoota”) and recent solo highlights (“H00dByAir,” “2024”) and splices them with five unreleased tracks. Two of the unreleased tracks respectively feature Travis Scott and the Weeknd. After the show, Carti posted a snippet to his spam of “Crush,” the unreleased Travis collab. In it you can hear Travis Scott’s trademark “Straight up!” adlib followed by a spiraling synth lead.
December 20, 2024
Like he’s trying to convince himself it’s still happening, Akademiks makes an announcement for the third consecutive December that, “Carti is on the WAY! Relax.”
December 27, 2024
The final Friday of 2024 comes along with no album in sight, and Carti fans start to accept the fact that they’ll have to wait until the new year. Subsequently, #IAMLIAR begins to trend in the community with the most egregious memes and AI mockups you’ll see online.