Image From TheFader.com
Playboi Carti is an interesting figure.
Making his name through his smash hit ?Magnolia?, which he then parleyed into his debut self-titled album, that turned him into some sort of a cult music icon. Since his appearance on A$AP Mob?s 2016 single ?Telephone Calls?, Carti has amassed a core group of fiercely devoted fans, who hold him almost legend-like regard, despite the fact that his discography only consists of two albums and a myriad of feature performances on various albums.
But there is another aspect to Carti that emboldens his cult following to declare one of the greatest to currently do it, and that a phenomenon known as the Carti snippet. Carti snippets are basically just leaks of unfinished material, scoured for and released without the artists approval to SoundCloud and other platforms. Notable leaks over the past year have featured names like SZA and even Beyonc, with the content mostly being made up of studio demos and unfinished material. Leaks, in the internet age, are very common, but Carti?s leaks seem to be more frequent than any other artist. A quick search through the subreddit /r/playboicarti will reveal multiple compilations based solely off of snippets and leaks. But where it gets even more unbelievable is that this certain mix only features content discovered in 2019, and from what I can tell, it is a lengthy body of ?work?. Never have we seen something quite as extensive as this, a steady stream of bits and pieces that are archived so meticulously, it is a testament to just how devoted the Carti fandom is to procuring any sort of content they can get their hands on.
But this is not where the story ends.
Leaked material is such that it is never meant to be released, so when the songs come out they usually feature bad mixes, empty verses, and a general lack of content or substance. Some songs, such as ?Benji the Dog? by the late Mac Miller, are virtually finished products that for whatever reason were never included on a project, whether it be for sample reasons or just quality control. Carti leaks sometimes follow this pattern, but there are other examples that are so barebones, so stripped down and basic that they can barely even be called songs. I have no idea who is leaking these pieces or how they?re doing it, but it is fascinating to see what happens when they come out.
Since some pieces are so lacking in content that the fan community takes it upon themselves to ?complete? the song in whatever image they see fit, and that leads us to ?Kid Cudi?. ?Kid Cudi?, was a song uploaded to SoundCloud back around early May, which featured an unreleased hook and beat performed by Carti; no verses, simply a chorus and an instrumental. This was a blank canvas, and eventually an anonymous SoundCloud user engineered and posted what virtually amounted to a fully fleshed out song, going so far as to include verses from frequent collaborators Lil Uzi Vert and A$AP Rocky. Upon hearing the track, I believed, along with what I assume to be many others, thought this was leaked material possibly from Carti?s upcoming album, ?Whole Lotta Red?. But, upon a bit of investigation, it was found to be nothing of the sort. The Rocky verse was originally featured on Rihanna?s song, ?Cockiness?, and Uzi?s contribution was quickly found to be from the song ?Go Off? that he made with Travis Scott and Quavo for the Fate of the Furious soundtrack in 2017. The song that had set the internet on fire was never truly a song at all, instead just a mashup of similar BPMs and content that was never meant to be heard.
This is just a small symptom of a larger issue that plagues Carti, his fans are so starved for music, so eager for the next project to release, that they are basically hearing nearly every studio session possible. How they?re doing this is unclear, but whatever method is being used, it has been very effective. But, in a way, they could be hurting their own cause. The snippets that are found are usually no longer than 2 minutes and really don?t have any substance, it is truthfully just scratching the surface of whatever concepts are being explored. Even so, these partial songs getting out may just further delay whatever album or project Carti is working on, if every song on your album has been leaked for 3 months prior to the release, then you risk your fans not being satisfied with what they consider to be leftovers that they?ve already heard. So you go back and revise the content only to have another leak set you back more and more time. I can only imagine how frustrated Carti and his team must be getting behind the scenes.
I understand the desire for music, (trust me, my favourite two artists are Frank Ocean and Childish Gambino), but leaking every single thing that your favourite artist records does more to harm than help the process, hopefully Carti can find a better safe to lock his hard drives in, and the music can come soon enough to satiate one of Hip-Hop? most rabid fanbases.
@Russell_28_ on Twitter.
