Playboi Carti’s third studio album, presumptuously titled MUSIC, has finally dropped after years of anticipation. Since his previous release Whole Lotta Red in 2020, fans have been living on a limited collection of singles and features for the last five years.
I’m not going to try and hide the fact that I dislike Carti, or ever really been a casual fan of his. For the most part, I think I can name more songs he ruins than improves. I would feel worse about the rest of this review if he were a decent person trying to make some music, but unfortunately for him, he’s an alleged abuser that can’t even manage to stick to a release date. That could help give a little more context for what you’re about to read.
I drank almost a full bottle of wine on a Monday night to get through this album, so now you’re gonna hear about it. If you couldn’t tell already, I did not enjoy the experience of listening to this album.
“Highlights”
I just want to preface this section by saying that calling these tracks highlights is a generosity, hence the quotes.
“CRUSH” is decent, but I sort of wish it was just an instrumental track. There are vocals from Carti and Travis Scott here just sound like they either recorded them from one room over, or someone forgot to turn them up while mixing the song.
“BACKD00R” also has features, which seems to be a recurring theme with the songs I didn’t hate on MUSIC. While it isn’t my favourite Kendrick Lamar feature, it’s at least interesting to hear him jump on a song outside of his usual styles. It’s also nice to hear an actual melody on this album from Kendrick and Jhené Aiko, who sound great together.
“GOOD CREDIT” has another Kendrick feature, but unfortunately, you have to sit through a verse from Carti to hear it. The production on this track is solid, but it mostly stands out because of the feature. Kendrick has some weird deliveries and lines, but it sounds like he’s having fun, so I can get some enjoyment out of that. His verse easily has the most interesting flow on the project.
“TRIM” is a song I could maybe see myself throwing on at the gym, but I can’t think of much else to say about it. Future did what Future does, as well as what the rest of the features did: make the song tolerable.
“WE NEED ALL DA VIBES” might be the only song I can comfortably say I actually liked. Thank you, Young Thug, and thank you, Carti, for making the decision to have such a small presence on this track.
“WALK” is a throwaway Future track—and I don’t even particularly care a whole lot for Future. On any other album, this would probably be a skip, but on MUSIC, it manages to be a diamond in the rough.
“2024” is a hilarious bonus track in hindsight. It was released on YouTube in December 2023 and wound up releasing on a project from 2025 titled MUSIC – SORRY 4 DA WAIT. At least he’s self-aware. Once again, I find myself vibing with the production and trying my best to ignore the vocal performance.
In case it seems like I singled out a decent amount of tracks for an album I didn’t like at all—I’m going to point out the fact that MUSIC is 30 tracks long. Personally I wouldn’t call going 7/30 a great score, and considering one of those tracks was a bonus from 2023, it gets even worse.
Final Thoughts
I listened to Carti mumbling over beats for nearly an hour and twenty minutes and came out of it feeling like I heard him say nothing. Now, I didn’t come into this album expecting any great lyricism, but when two songs allegedly feature AI that merely mimics Carti, you can’t exactly knock me for saying he did a whole lotta nothing on this album. A lot of these songs sound like a collection of adlibs rather than actual verses, even from someone like Kendrick on “MOJO JOJO,” who’s obviously capable of more. I understand that’s not Carti’s vibe, and I might just not “get it,” but it’s not for me.
The Carti that made MUSIC isn’t the groundbreaking artist that people love from Die Lit and Whole Lotta Red. This is an artist who can barely get in the studio long enough to record his verses or stick to one of his multiple release dates. Even this album arrived late: fans were stuck waiting for cryptic updates sent to Twitch streamer Kai Cenat from Carti.
The only thing Carti can be called groundbreaking for nowadays is his laziness and use of AI. For an album that supposedly took five years to make, it sounds like it was made in a weekend. Are there some decent songs on here? The best I can say is sort of.
Listening to this gives me the same feeling I get when I realize I’ve been scrolling through Instagram Reels for the past two hours. You’re aware that you’re experiencing something, but all it does is wash over you and leave zero impact. Some of these songs would probably sound good in a club, but they certainly don’t sound great in my headphones. I’d still be left scratching my head wondering why someone would choose to play tracks off of this project instead of any of Carti’s other albums.
I told another Her Campus writer to listen to the song “EVIL J0RDAN” while I was writing this so she could understand why I was having a difficult time finding positive things to say. Her response was: “I think this is the worst music I’ve ever heard, and you can quote me on that.”
With Carti’s previous releases, whether or not I enjoyed them, there was some spark of creativity or passion. MUSIC simply has none of that. I can understand getting some enjoyment from a couple of tracks…but I really can’t say anything more.
Am I looking forward to Carti’s next project? No. But do I think he can do better than this? That’s more difficult to answer. At this point in his career, I don’t think it’s a question of whether he can or not, but if he even cares enough to try.