Thursday evening, renowned rapper and chronic procrastinator Playboi Carti surprised fans by releasing his third studio album several hours early.
Elated supporters from around the world flooded popular streaming services to listen to the new project. The excitement quickly faded, however, when fans were met with an avant-garde spoken-word album, instead of his long-awaited project, I AM MUSIC.
The album, titled I AM NOT MUSIC totals a length of about three hours and is spread over 57 “songs” that feature the rapper discussing various philosophical and theological topics.
About one hour after the project was released, the hate comments started coming in. Listeners shared their grievances across every platform. Instagram, X, Facebook and TikTok were all operating at maximum capacity during this period, almost crashing each website. Theogony collected a number of posts from disgruntled fans.
User “Ca$h_Carti_Glazer3000” tweeted, “This is NOT very OPIUM,” referencing the rapper’s music label, “Hearing this album made me so mad that I tore down the Playboi Carti shrine in my bedroom.”
Another netizen, with the Instagram handle is “KawaiiKenCarson”, posted to the platform: “The album dropped while I was harassing someone online who called Carti a dead-beat dad and I almost punched a hole straight through my computer monitor out of excitement. Now I’m extremely disappointed.”
Additionally, an aggrieved TikTok-er uploaded a ten-minute video of himself which featured the user sobbing uncontrollably, frothing at the mouth while staring directly into the camera, and then collapsing onto the ground. Local authorities were subsequently called to conduct a wellness check on the poster.
Theogony also reached out to OPIUM-signed rappers Ken Carson and Destroy Lonely for a comment on the situation, but both have refused to comment. Additionally, Playboi Carti has been radio silent since dropping his album, with many suspecting that he has fled the country following mass backlash from his fans.
Fans haven’t been the only ones to scrutinize Playboi Carti’s album. Media reviews have been rolling in left and right, each one thoroughly disparaging the ill-received experimental project. Major music journalism outlet, Pitchfork, gave I AM NOT MUSIC a 0/10, reporting that they didn’t even bother to listen to the album.
The Rolling Stone Magazine is debating whether to shut down production, claiming that “the album caused all of our staffers to lose their passion for music and journalism.”
The Onion, a satirical newspaper, said that “I AM NOT MUSIC is so bad that it’s beyond parody.”
After almost half of a decade of anticipation for I AM MUSIC, Playboi Carti has failed to deliver, and has left both fans and critics very disappointed. Right now, the music world is in a state of complete shock, recoiling from what the media is calling “the biggest disappointment ever” only comparable in its mortifying effect to the rapper’s last album: Whole Lotta Red.