It’s crazy to think he’s only been around for close to a decade and with four album releases, it baffles me how much his sound and style has changed. Time is flat circle. I need to stop blinking. Anyways, yea he still does the “mumbling shit” but it’s so different now. From the production and aesthetic, he always tries something different for the era. This album release and the last one too he’s been doing this whole “mysterious” bullshit which in hindsight is pretty funny. Like there are interviews and videos out there of him being an everyday guy, we get a sense of who he is as an artist and a person. You're too damn old to be doing this shit but the kids do love that “aura” mythical bullshit with their favorites. They think he dude from Solo Leveling. Just so weird to think about. Anyway, Just overall I had to lower my expectations coming into this. In the past when Carti drops, I’m not in love with his albums right away. Usually, it takes me months or even years to appreciate the album for what it is but I’m here to say with this….I did like this.
Now I’m not going to sit here all day and break down every song here like I usually do (I have said this many times now thinking about it), plus Carti is not the type of artist to break down his music. It’s mostly to “rage” out to or “vibe” I guess, I don’t know I’m fucking old for this young person shit. If had a car with a nice subwoofer, some of the production on here would blow my speakers out. This album does give me vibes of “TLOP”, “Donda” or even “Whole Lotta Red”, where the entire record is unfocused, all over the place, rushed, sloppy, inconsistent, etc. In a way that is a bad thing, I like my albums to be at least structured and piece together well to give my full attention but I can give a slight pass for how disjointed the album is. I do wish the album, if it was going to be super long, be at least 22-24 songs cause the tail end of the album just overall loses steam. I’m still pissed they cut Gunna’s verse on “WE NEED ALL DA VIBES” for a turn into your college assignment at the last-second feature from Ty Dolla. That damn black Nazi drained all his talents.
Speaking of the black Nazi, he has two production credits here. Pisses me off cause he can be still talented but god, terrible fucking human being sex, and a racist pest. I guess he had a few guest verses here but they were cut, as of writing this he’s still ranting about it. Oh yeah, Kendrick Lamar is a guest feature on three songs. One of my favorite compelling hypocrites is a huge topic about his morals being questioned AGAIN cause he working with someone like Carti. To be fair, this is a valid point and discussion, but I’ve said it before many times, all our favorites work with bad people. His inclusion on tracks like “MOJO JOJO”, “GOOD CREDIT” and “BACKD00R” was fun, and funny too. I will give praise too, mainly for being the handful of tracks that have structure and focus on what a song is supposed to be. I was lowkey upset it wasn’t SZA doing the background vocals on “BACKD00R” but it was Jhene Aiko. Good to hear from her again, I forget she exists sometimes.
The rest of the features are whatever. The typical ones you see on every mainstream big-name album, thug, future, Weeknd, Travis, and Uzi. Wild Skepta does appear, “TOXIC” is my favorite song on this album. I love the quirky beat, sounds like some shit from Goldeneye N64, Carti's funny ass voices he is doing after a huge hit of circle k nitrous fits the beat. Not going to the front, hearing Travis set off the MK Ultra in me. I’m starting to get annoyed with him, mainly cause his features are always an ass, plus he broke my dude Cody Rhodes's eardrum. What the fuck was he thinking? It’s scripted dude! Chill! However, I thought he did fine though. It was good to hear the 16 29 duo return and make amends but I can tell this was leftover pink tape demos left in the vault. Hell, even one of the tracks carti doesn't even say anthing. Was he like too stoned off his mind to say even an adlib?
The songs with Future are not that great, I thought a song being called "CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE" would be a fun song but sadly it's not. I don't think Future is washed yet but the signs are there. The song with Thug is also pretty bad, Like i said earlier they should've kept the Gunna Version. I liked "Rather Lie" with Abel, I thought it was Drake for a split second, don't ask why. Another song that sounded like an actual song. However, carti's verses are not even him rapping, it's AI. At first I couldn't tell, Carti does have a weird ass flow and voice but if listen closely the vocals do sound choppy and inconsistent. "Fine Shit" is another song that used AI as well, that one I can hear it easily. It sucks that AI has now reached into music now, to me it's just lazy. Like you might just stick to using ghostwriters than just lazily put an AI voice filter over someone elses. This sucks man. There’s other tracks and even singles that got hit the AI label but haven’t been confirmed or denied at this time.
Anyways, other stand out tracks here are "EVIL J0RDAN", an older song but glad made the cut. the added intro is so fucking stupid, shit's gonna go triple diamond on anime or Shai NBA edit tik tok for the reminder of the year. "RADAR" has nice production, reminds me of a wrestling theme song on how grand the start is, The SWAMP IZZO adlibs are fun too. "CRANK" another song that slaps, I love the energy of the beat and carti's performance, FREE THROW SWAMP IZZO! "COCAINE NOISE" has this sinster guitar sample, sounds like a mini rock band made this. Him going "SCHYEAH!" is too goofy. "OLYMPAIN" is I would the "sleeper hit" of the album. It does have the vibe of a "WLR" leftover, bro sounds so zooted here too. I enjoyed it, "LIKE WEEZY" is another sleeper too. I wished the album sounded more like this song, it's one of the more "chill" songs and it's not trying so hard to sound hard. If you ask me what my least favorite song on the album was, I'll say "OPM BABI". It sounds like a bad Lazer Dim type beat, like if someone made a parody of this genre of this new "underground" sound i've been hearing latley on that side of rap. Whoever cooked that beat should be fired.
Overall my final thoughts are that I ended up enjoying more than I should've. Something makes my brain oversimtulate and makes my head and body feel fuzzy and warm? I don't how to explain it but maybe I have Doomer Tik Tok brain now. Which is not good by the way! Like I said, I wished the album was cut to down to maybe 22 tracks, I would've loved this a lot more but where it stands at, this shit is fine. I can't say this is overall my favorite albums so far into the year, rap albums wise this is up there for the genre. It's weird to look back on good his body of work is thus far. I'm not sure where he goes from here with his sound. Would be funny if he dropped the act and went after this. It would be funny if he makes music like Wayne or Gucci or hell, goes back to his old sound. I am grateful too he didn't have his label mates all over this album too, god they suck. Yeah, fun album, worth the wait? Eh what the hell sure.
Also.......SWAMP IZZO! (God he rules, shut the fuck up about his inclusion on here)
Favorite tracks: TOXIC, EVIL J0RDAN, MOJO JOJO. BACKD00R, RADAR, CRANK, GOOD CREDIT, WAKE UP F1LTHY, COCAINE NOSE, OLYMPIAN, HBA, LIKE WEEZY, CRUSH, PHILLY, RATHER LIE(?), I SEEEEEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI, MUNYUN, JUMPIN
Least Favorite Tracks: OPM BABI, FINE SHIT
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