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BY: Adam Belmares
Ranking: 8.5/10
After nearly five years of waiting for a new studio album, the hip-hop community was finally gifted with arguably the most anticipated album of this decade. On March 14, 2025, around 3:00 a.m. EST, the, also called the I AM MUSIC album by Atlanta rapper Jordan Carter, aka Playboi Carti, was released on all streaming platforms. The long-awaited album was set to be released at midnight on March 14. Still, Carter announced via Twitch streamer Kai Cenat and Hip-hop journalist DJ Akademiks that the album would be delayed for three more hours, resulting in millions of fans staying awake in hopes of being the first people to listen to the album. After a couple of days since the release of MUSIC, was the five-year wait worth it for fans?
Despite maintaining a musical presence in the hip-hop community with surprise feature appearances such as "Carnival", “Fein”, “Popular”, and “Timeless”, the Hip-hop community was eager to hear and experience the new “I AM MUSIC” era of Playboi Carti following his opium movement era that stemmed from his Whole Lotta Red album release from Christmas day of 2020.
In addition, Carter has had a long-documented history of consistently delaying or not dropping promised music after announcing that he would through social media platforms. Carter’s consistent behavior of “lying” to his fans and teasing them into believing that he will drop new music has built up a different type of excitement and hype for Hip-hop fans’ preparation for Carter’s third-studio album's official release date.
Over the years, Carter has become one of the most influential, dominant, and successful artists of this generation. Known for his iconic baby-voice effect, consistent high-quality production with collabs with well-respected producers, and frequently changing his sound in delivery and production, Carter has become one of the pioneers of modern Hip-hop artists. Since going mainstream with hits “Magnolia” and “Wokeuplikethis” from his 2017 self-titled mixtape, Carter has skied to the top of the music industry by maintaining an enigmatic persona, making rare public appearances, and influencing a cult-like fanbase, referred to as VAMPS. Since breaking into the industry, the Grammy-nominated artist has achieved one No.1 hit with Kanye West’s “Carnival” collaboration, one No.1 album, and five top ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts.
The five years in the making of the album consisted of 30 tracks, totaling up to an hour and sixteen minutes worth of listening time. The album included features guest appearances from Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Skepta, Future, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Uzi Vert, Ty Dolla Sign, and Young Thug. The experimental production of the album came from a variety of top-tier producers in the music industry including F1lthy, Kanye West, Metro Boomin, Mike Dean, Southside, Wheezy, and more.
Carter implemented new styles and production on his new album, as expected from the Atlanta artist, incorporating classic Atlanta trap, industrial synths, and electropop. Prior to the album drop, Carter released "2024", "H00dByAir," aka “HBA,” "Backr00ms", "EvilJ0rdan," and "Ketamine" as singles to promote the album. These tracks highlighted the new era of Playboi Carti, demonstrating his newly popularized “deep voice” mixed with his iconic mumble rap style.
Carter maintained his reputation for putting outrage and high energy with new tracks like "JUMPIN," “POP OUT,” and “RADAR.” Carter then settles down and steers away from his rage style on the album and focuses on new, catchy, and smooth melodic sounds on “WE NEED ALL DA VIBES” “TRIM”, and “BACKD00R”. Carter includes a “radio-hit” type of record with a mix of The Weeknd’s smooth, hypnotic vocals mixed with his erratic energy and switching between his normal “self-titled mixtape” recording voice, and “deep voice” style. I believe that Carter successfully gives his fans a well-balanced album with a handful of different styles for different moods. The album includes slow melodic, high-energy, rage, and synchronized flows and beats.
Carter surprised many when he released three songs including Hip-Hop icon Kendrick Lamar. Many fans were surprised by the collaboration and wondered how the duo would sound after DJ Akademiks leaked a handful of features that would be on the album days before the release of MUSIC. Lamar was credited on the songs "MOJO JOJO," “BACKD00R”, and “GOOD CREDIT.” I was not a big fan of how Lamar sounded on the "MOJO JOJO" record and believe that his verse and adlibs on the song were unnecessary and didn’t add any value to the song. On the other two tracks, I believe Lamar exceeded my expectations of what I hoped he would sound like on a Playboi Carti album. Displaying his versatility and ability to adapt to the different styles of those he chooses to collaborate with, Lamar rhymes in a dark, mysterious, and aggressive way on “GOOD CREDIT,” matching Carter’s energy and theme for the album. On “BACKD00R,” Lamar provides a catchy hook with his harmonized lyrics to showcase a soft side of Carter by slowing down the tempo and energy of the album.
The only two criticisms I have about the album were the absence of features from his artists under his Opium label, such as Ken Carson, Destroy Lonely, and Homixide Gang, and the overuse of the “Swamp Izzo” adlib. Considering that the new album represents a new wave of sounds and style for Carter, I believe that some of the tracks that are intended to be rage songs could have included some of his Opium peers to bring more energy to the record. Also, including them on the album would not only shed more light on his artists instead of including artists that already have big names, but it would satisfy his cult-like fan base by giving other rage artists a role on the album. The “Swamp Izzo” adlib, which was tagged on nearly all the songs on the album shouts out DJ Swamp Izzo, who is a Hip-Hop DJ. The adlib was overused and abused at a variety of moments on the album and sometimes took away from the experience of listening to the album due to the repletion of it and overshadowing other lyrics on certain records. In contrast, there are many times where the adlib is placed perfectly and rings energy into the song with the deep and strong vice utilized on the producer tag. Overall, many of the songs on the album included the producer tag not just once but multiple times on one record and I think once is enough to give the proper credit to the producer instead of it coming off as a spamming situation.
After five times fully listening to the album from top to bottom, I would rank the listening experience an 8.5/10. As far as substance and storytelling, the album falls short of telling a story or spreading a message to the audience, but Carter is not known for his storytelling ability. Rather, he is known for bringing a certain energy to life through his production and experimental voice changes. I believe that the album was not entirely worth the five-year wait, but Carter’s albums are known to age “like fine wine” and, over the years, have only become more successful over time. As of March 17, Music has become Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day in 2025 so far and is projected to sell 250k units off streaming revenue alone.
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