Movies

Playboi Carti, rap’s Nosferatu, sails into town with ‘Music’ at Rolling Loud

BBG News

Sunday night at Rolling Loud at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood looked like the biggest night of Playboi Carti’s life. But for about 15 minutes in the middle of the set, his show nearly boiled over.

On Friday, Carti — the gothic Atlanta emcee whose mix of extreme-metal sonics and disorienting trap music made him a Gen Z megastar—released ”Music,” his long-awaited third album. Carti rug-pulling the album last minute was a longstanding meme, so when the 30-track LP actually hit the streamers, fans were delirious. Rap’s Nosferatu had finally sailed into town.

With tens of thousands of fans packed into the main stage on Sunday night, matching Carti’s cryptic but unhinged energy, the mood was intense. Mosh pits were inevitable, but Carti’s are a breed apart.

To Rolling Loud’s credit, once things got heated, the promoters left no chance of disaster. A dozen songs in, the house lights went up, Carti left the stage and the screens told fans to back up, now in an effort to stop the crowd from pushing forward and crushing each other.

“We’ll pay any curfew fines so Carti can do his whole set,” the organizers said over the loudspeakers as they pulled people out of the crowd. “Everyone calm down and take three steps back.”

Twenty minutes later, the show was back on, with the Weeknd crooning “Rather Lie” and “Timeless” surrounded by Carti’s Opium crew while pyro and chugging guitars flared around them. Carti fans come for the chaos — is the rest of the music industry ready for him on the A-list?

Review

ASAP Rocky returns to the stage — via helicopter — at Rolling Loud California

The rapper and style maven played his first show Saturday since being acquitted in a recent felony assault case.

Ever since his mixtape introduction in 2017, Carti has mesmerized rap enthusiasts with the raw power of his music, his album art that references Suicide, distinctive facial piercings, and a mystique surrounding occult themes. While he may not possess the technical prowess of a rapper like Kendrick Lamar, Carti is a pioneer in the use of slurred ad libs, unusual vocal effects, and reverse timing. Kendrick admires him; in fact, Lamar features on “Music,” and refers to Carti as his “evil twin” on “Good Credit.

Much of the pre-show chatter was speculating if Lamar would pop out during Carti’s set. He did not, alas, though it’s fair to raise an eyebrow at Lamar vigorously co-signing a guy recently arrested for choking his pregnant girlfriend just weeks after winning Grammys for calling Drake a deadbeat pedophile.

But Lamar is no one’s moral savior, and if you think Carti’s atypical in extreme music circles, well, we’ve got a burned church in Norway to sell you.

intense, dark, and groundbreaking.

As a movie critic, I had the chance to attend Carti’s first show since the release of “Music,” and I managed to catch most of it on Sunday. The eagerly awaited tracks such as “K Pop” and “Mojo Jojo” finally found their place within the pulsating chaos and digital decay that characterizes Carti’s discography. Tracks like “Cocaine Nose” and “Evil J0rdan” took a chaotic descent into trap hell, but they were followed by poignant, melodic singles such as “BackD00r,” demonstrating that Carti has the ability to dabble in a songwriterly streak (it’s no wonder The Weeknd has him as an opener on his stadium tour right now).

California

Rakim Mayers, better known as the rapper ASAP Rocky, will headline the Rolling Loud festival and serve as a chair of the Met Gala this year — as long as he dodges a conviction at his trial for a 2021 Hollywood shooting.

When Carti has more traditional rappers like Lamar or Skepta as a guest, or especially the Weeknd’s keening romance on a hook, there’s a hint of how generationally good this music could be if he put a little more ballast into his rapping and writing. The same goes for his live performances. Carti’s famous for his misdirection onstage, only appearing in flashes on screens and hiding in a roiling sea of fog and flames.

But there’s a line between entrancing vagueness and just not being that present — there were long stretches where Carti seemed to leave the stage entirely while pre-recorded lead vocals still played. That was probably fine for this show to the faithful, and no one working today can match the mercurial strangeness of Carti’s complete vision. But Carti clearly wants to be regarded as a defining, boundary-pushing artist of our time. He absolutely is, and he’s smashing streaming records while doing it. His Rolling Loud set reaffirmed that one-of-one status — even if he can’t coast on his plague ship forever.

Read More

2025-03-17 22:05

Previous post Love Island Star’s Girlfriend Faces 3 Years in Prison Over $2.6M Crypto Tax Scandal!
Next post Patrick Schwarzenegger and Fiancée Go Bare for Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS Wedding Campaign!