Though the news of rapper Playboi Carti (born Jordan Terrell Carter) dropping an album might not mean much to most, the rap community could not have been more shocked by it. Releasing his third studio album early morning on Mar. 14, 2025, seven hours later than its intended release time, Carti surprised his fans with his new, highly anticipated hour-long album Music (I AM MUSIC).
According to Metacritic, Music was generally pretty well received, achieving a score of 76/100. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, garnering 298,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, as well as breaking multiple streaming records (134 million first-day Spotify streams).
“The new Playboi Carti album was pretty good, and it was definitely worth the five year wait. I think that Carti’s a lyrical mastermind,” said senior Jonathan Gold.
Being his first drop since Whole Lotta Red (released on Christmas Day in 2019), Carti was sure to pack the album with well crafted lyrics and exceptional features, including Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Jhene Aiko, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Ty Dolla $ign, and Young Thug. In addition to those features, the album was produced by Playboi Carti himself, Kanye West, Metro Boomin, Mike Dean, and others from his Opium label.
The album, which the rapper characterized as “years of developmental Hell”, was recorded from 2022 to its release in 2025 and had a total of 30 songs, a pretty lengthy tracklist. During this recording period, Carti actively recorded and experimented with new sounds, seeking to expand on the success of his previous work. There was a notable shift in his signature high pitched, “baby voice,” to a deeper and raspier tone. Mosi Reeves of Rolling Stone similarly criticized the album’s lyricism and overlong runtime but lauded Carti’s vocals as “unequivocally impressive,” stating that “he shifts his tone from track to track so dramatically that he often sounds like a completely different person.”
Despite the several differences of style between this new and old albums, he still incorporated the ever present elements of “rage music” in Music. He highlighted the personal significance of the album in interviews as well, describing it as his most important work to date. Carter shared that a majority of the album was recorded in a cave-like studio in Paris, where he spent a few months in the creative process. To spoil his fans even more, the rapper released a deluxe version of the album, “MUSIC – SORRY 4 DA WAIT,” a week later with four extra songs.
The Atlanta born rapper is most notably known for his unique style, sound, adlibs, and combination of genres. He uses different vocal styles and beats and has been known to push the boundaries of trap music since his beginning in 2017, solidifying his place in the rap community.
“The ad libs are too much, like the guy just yells into the mic and it kind of interrupts the songs. The album definitely wasn’t three years worth of making music, and it wasn’t good enough for five years worth of not dropping an album,” said senior Charlie Cohn.
Carter is signed to both Interscope Records and Opium, the latter to which he founded in 2019. Many fans were skeptical of the rapper’s album promotion and whether he was actually going to release the album or not (as he had built a reputation for instilling false hope in his fans with empty promises). Lots of people even took to social media saying that he was just “playing in our faces” – a statement that soon became untrue the morning of Mar. 14.
“I thought the album was amazing. The production on it was great and the features from Travis Scott were very good,” said sophomore Noah Widolock.
Alphonse Pierre of Pitchfork described Music as a “flawed, contradictory, inflated, loud, exciting, mainstream-ified, uncomfortable, nostalgic event” and deemed the guest appearances ineffective: “It’s 77 minutes of nonstop trap beat variants, EDM flourishes, half-finished and overthought songs.”
“Quite frankly, I think that album was the worst album I’ve ever heard. It’s a horrible album and not even music. You wait five years for utter trash and the production sucks,” said senior Spencer Cohen.
Despite some criticism for the album’s length, lyricism, and how long it took for the rapper to drop, critics and fans alike still praised Carti’s vocal versatility, production, and craftsmanship.
“The album was extremely worth the five year wait. Out of thirty songs, I’d say he [Playboi Carti] went thirty for thirty – a perfect ten. It’s probably the best album I’ve heard in the past five years,” said senior Tanner Johnson.