Playboi Carti: An Enigma (for some)
It was refreshing to see.
For years the brothas in my former WhatsApp group credited every musical misunderstanding to the fact that I was ten years their senior. If there was a song or an artist that came out and I didn’t like it, they would assume that it was because I was older than them/out of touch.
This went on for eight years.
(The reality is, I been hatin’ since I was a teenager).
I couple years back we added some younger folks to the group, brothas in they 20s. One of em, Shane, was a fan of Playboi Carti the same way that those dudes was a fan of Jay Z and I was a fan of De La, and they gave Shane the same type of hell I used to give them for some of their musical choices. To which Shane would reply, “well, you’re just older.”
It was so refreshing to see.
Because Playboi Carti has a large following and he’s not like the typical artist of these times, he’s not a social media darling and doesn’t drop projects like the African driver ant drops eggs. Carti only has a few projects out.
But when he does release music, people have a hard time classifying him. Personally, I just listen for what makes sense to me. Like:
I had every chance to sign all the young niggas
But I was in my bag
Really, I don’t wanna worry about these niggas
I was tryna sign Trippie Redd before they knew about Trippie
I was fuckin’ with Lil Keed when he made lil’ “Blicky”
And I thought I had Pi’erre, but the label tricked me
It’s obvious that Playboi Carti has his ears to the streets…the younger streets. Because there are many o’ self-proclaimed Rap fans that don’t know Trippie Redd, Lil Keed, Pi’erre Bourne, nor any of the artist that they collaborate with.
They don’t understand Carti which just shows me that ya have to be careful about being in the age/generation bag. Because when things change, and they change often, you’ll get caught out there like Homer’s angry dad yelling at the cloud.
