Playboi Carti’s latest album, “I AM MUSIC,” is arguably his most divisive project to date. Sporting an impressive 30 song track list the project is ambitious, to say the least.
Fans who have grown to love Carti’s beat-centric, immersive music will not be disappointed as there are very few changes to the iconic style that can be seen across his catalog. The album has a clear, star-studded cast of producers, some standouts being Wheezy, Metro Boomin, Kanye West, Mike Dean and many others. Their combined effort helps to make a rich soundscape of blaring synths and pounding 808’s that really draws you into the experience.
A notable aspect of the album is the introduction of a deeper vocal inflection from Carti, which was present on a few singles leading up to the release. While this addition can be fun at times, on certain occasions it became slightly too distracting. This was especially evident on the song “Toxic” where I was led to believe that he was a feature, not the lead artist.
On the topic of distracting aspects of the album, the host of the album, Swamp Izzo, was a very clear issue. An occasional few words from a host can really add to a song but the constant yelling from the D.J. lost its charm quickly. The issue is incredibly evident on the song “OPM Babi” where the constant yelling of his name combined with an incredibly loud gunshot sound effect going off every other second brought me to the conclusion that it was a satire track after the first listen because of how much random noise was included.
Probably the most glaring issue of the album, however, is that it is unfinished, or at least not as polished as it could be. Many songs on the album are under two minutes, with very simple and thrown-together vocals. The features tend to be the main standout on many of the songs as the poor quality in lots of the tracks can be made up for with a good feature.
Overall, about 17 of the tracks seem to be of passing quality, with the quality of those tracks easily making up for the rest of the lackluster. While the album was a really fun listen and had some of my favorite songs of this year and the previous, it felt much more like a mixtape than a finished product. Still, “I AM MUSIC” was a quality project that is definitely above average, but its glaring issues could have been fixed in the five year gap between this and the last track, making it not worth that long of a wait.
