Was Playboi Carti's 'I Am Music' Album Worth the Wait?
After five long years, Playboi Carti returns with his third studio album—a sprawling swamp of rage that tests patience, defies conventions, and arguably reaffirms his place at the razor's edge of hip-hop. But was it worth the wait?
Album artwork for MUSIC. Image property of AWGE and Interscope.
After literal years of development hell, Playboi Carti's third LP, MUSIC (or I AM MUSIC), is here. A sprawling, 30-track behemoth of an album that races between punk and trap, MUSIC is still making waves in hip-hop a week or so removed from its release. And I quite like it.
Carti felt so aloof and untouchable that he went without dropping for five years. It was hard not to grow sceptical about his post-Whole Lotta Red direction. He had his proxies, as his Opium label made serious gains in his hiatus. But they aren't him and never will be.
And when MUSIC dropped, they weren't even on it. Carti got it done by blending the veterans who ruled the recent past—Future, Kendrick Lamar, The Weekend, Jhené Aiko, Travis Scott, and more—with a sound that is very much the future.
While initially a bloated, exhaustive listen (and still is in many regards), MUSIC feels like a cultivated, substantial evolution in Carti's career. It's a swollen culmination of the gritty SoundCloud, Awful Records and A$AP Mob eras, the punk-rage sound he laid the foundation for on his 2018 debut album Die Lit, and the modern alternative sound that further developed in his absence.
MUSIC is drawn out, abrasive, very punk, very trap, and very Black—all at once. It's not everyone's cup of tea, and for good reason. But if it's yours, you'll know it immediately. Let's get into it.
MUSIC's first five tracks—"POP OUT", "CRUSH", "K POP", "EVIL J0RDAN", and "MOJO JOJO"—plunge us into a hardcore torture chamber of mosh-ready sounds. "POP OUT" is a relentless and frenzied track that serves as an early litmus test for listeners–if you aren't messing with these, turn back now. I love the gaudy metal guitar riffs on "CRUSH", and the choir-backed build-up makes for a dark rap stadium sound that really hasn't been attempted since 2021's DONDA (and that attempt was unsuccessful).
I will say this about "CRUSH": I don't think any oldhead on this album was as much of a nonfactor as Travis Scott was. "CRUSH" was the first of four features for him, and they each progressively worsened. It's just completely uninteresting stuff from a man whose sound has not matured since my sophomore year of college (in 2018—#unc).
That first "straight up" ad-lib on "CRUSH" made me seethe, and I like the song otherwise. None of the veteran performances here are revolutionary—although Kendrick and The Weekend make some good things happen. Still, Travis's is the only one that felt like an actual detraction.
"K POP" isn't bad, but it feels like the least memorable of the five. Especially given that the two that follow it, "EVIL J0RDAN" and "MOJO JOJO", are hits. Sure, the intro to "EVIL J0RDAN" is overindulgent; it might sound like transition music from a Netflix original reality TV series. I don't care. Carti slid on this track. It serves as one of the few sonic themes on the album, though the immense size makes it harder to pinpoint just one.
It brings the same pit feelings as "POP OUT" and "K POP" while maintaining Carti's modern trap sound. Someone called the album 'DUI Music' on Twitter, and this was the first song that came to mind. He's like if Sid Vicious was a goon from Atlanta.
"MOJO JOJO" with Kendrick Lamar felt like a seamless partnership, and anyone surprised by the five-foot Hebrew Israelite's effortless chemistry with Mr. King Vamp hasn't been listening lately. His collabs with Baby Keem and his more recent forays into driving, rock-inspired music like his Euphoria diss should have been a clear signal.
Lamar's role on "MOJO JOJO" and the other songs he's featured in is more hypeman than spotlight stealer, and that's best displayed in his first appearance on the album. The man who just had the most significant year in hip hop put his heart and soul into some ad-libs for an artist that no one would have connected him to the last time Carti dropped. "MOJO JOJO" is so fun and dark and feels like a moment we'll look back on gleefully in the years to follow.
The following third of the album is where a lot of these 'return to trap music' takes are coming from, and they aren't crazy at all. But for all of its hits, the album still feels too disorganised and heavy for a claim like that to feel straightforward and deliberate. Nonetheless, Carti uses this stretch to display the effortless back and forth between punk and more traditional trap music he came up with.
Iconography, press shots, prototype album artwork and outfits from the 'I Am Music' era."PHILLY" is fine even with the government-mandated Travis Scott feature (two of many). It's boring and sounds like it could've dropped at any point within the last ten years. Then it gets really southern. The Metro Boomin-produced "RADAR" samples of Lil Wayne and Rick Ross's 2011 "John". Carti's approach makes a strange, delightful crank I'll probably grow fond of.
"RATHER LIE", "FINE SHIT", and "BACKD00R" is an underrated (yet radio-friendly) sequences on the album. None of the songs are risky, and they invoke a sound that many older fans (like me) first fell in love with. But they're still terrific, catchy, and continue to call back to Black American music of the late 20th century.
The girls are gonna eat. Rather than Lie up, just wait. It might be one of the more palatable club songs on the album, and it achieves that without sounding super corny or strained. I feel similarly about "FINE SHIT"—a very slick soul R&B sample with one of the more memorable hooks on the album.
Both of these tracks have 'AI filter' rumours circulating around them. I don't know exactly what that means, but AI's growing influence on art, film, and music is nauseating to me, and I think artists should be shamed for using it. Something to keep an eye out for if Carti ever speaks on the album. "BACKD00R" completes the soul-sample trap foray, touting yet another pretty seamless ad-lib session from Kendrick Lamar and Jhené Aiko, who I have admittedly not been keeping tabs on.
"TOXIC" had to marinate on me, and I've grown to appreciate Skepta's verse (although he's had much better). It's #badmanmusic. However, it feels out of place, given the next chunk.
"MUNYUN" has a truly modern 2025 sound that Opium and Carti really have a grip on right now. Everything is a computer-ass beat combined with Swamp Izzo's constant ad-libs (which are absolutely perfect, with no notes, fantastic addition). "CRANK" is hectic and charged, which I appreciate, but the album's herky-jerkiness and general lack of cohesion start to set in here. If the album were shorter and more organised, it would be easier to appreciate moments like this. But they get lost in the overflow.
"I SEEEEE YOU BABY BOI" is an album highlight for me in the same production vein as "MUNYUN". The beat is crazy. It feels like something PinkPantheress of Charli XCX could hop on. It's moments like these that make it clear: even with all the bullshit and edging and unfinished, half-placed tracks, Carti has spent this time experimenting, something that a lot of mainstream rappers of his level struggle with right now.
At this point in the album, I'm slightly tapped out. "JUMPIN" is fun. I'm glad Uzi had a nice moment on MUSIC, and he and Uzi are still cool. This track will make good background music for a semi-viral TikTok sports edit. I feel similarly about "TRIM". It's good to see Future still delivering, especially since Carti channels his sound so much on this album. 2015 DS2 classic "I Serve the Base" would fit right in.
"COCAINE NOSE" sounded really cool at Rolling Loud, and it's an opportunity for Carti to continue implementing live rock instrumentation into his performances, something I wish more rappers did. "WE NEED ALL DA VIBES" was incredible; I won't complain about a Young Thug verse—I thought Thugger was going away for a while. But I feel the same way about Ty Dolla $ign as I do about Travis Scott when it comes to his performance on the album.
"OLYMPIAN" is my favourite of the modern Opium tracks. This might not be the future of music, but it's undoubtedly an institutional moment for a sound that's been considered underground and Soundcloud derivative for years. It's a pretty infectious track that I've spun over and over. Following it with "OPM BABI"—a song that not even AI could replicate—is another point of major experimentation that is a net positive for hip-hop at large.
"LIKE WEEZY" completes the avant-garde run, and the album sputters towards the end. "DIS 1 GOT I" and "WALK" are fine. And "HBA/H00DBYAIR" is another hit, even with the new snares. But at this point, who's still listening?
Carti albums have never been these super coherent, thoughtful pieces of art. They've actually been the complete opposite. But MUSIC is so jam-packed that it makes Die Lit and Whole Lotta Red look more calculated. That's the primary reason this album is really good but not great.
“That being said, it can’t be overstated how important this album is as a piece of Black experimental hip-hop. There is no one doing it like this guy right now. Carti combined punk, southern trap, and the modern underground, all while maintaining a connection to the city and sound that raised him. ”
This drop, his increased social media presence, and his recent Rolling Loud performance have demystified him a bit, and that's for the better. Let's hope he speaks up and gives us some insight into his vision and motivations for moving like this—like a rock star. Sure, it's messy, but when hasn't it been? The future is always hard to understand while it's happening.
8/10
Stream MUSIC below: