In the world of modern rap, few artists command as much mystique – and frustration – as Playboi Carti. If you asked a fan what they thought about him at the end of 2020, they most likely would have told you that he was a pioneer of rage music, with consistently good releases and a unique style. If you asked that same fan their feelings at the end of 2024, you’d probably get a markedly different answer, including a few accusations of falsehood and egotism. Why is that?
Playboi Carti’s as-yet unreleased third album, I Am Music, has been shrouded in controversy ever since its announcement in August of 2021. Originally titled Narcissist, Carti announced that it would release on September 13, his 26th birthday. The date came and went with no album. Two days later, he would claim that the missed drop was due to sample clearances and a hacked website. This was the first in a series release date lies, dubbed “pump-fakes”, that would plague his fans for years to come.
Carti’s releases dried out, with only a feature on the Donda Experience Performance listening party live stream in February of 2022. However, in April, a rare interview with XXL seemed to give hope of an imminent release, with Carti claiming the album’s title had been changed to Music, because “that’s all it is at this point.” He also played a new single, “Wicked”, but never officially released it. It would eventually drop over a year later after fans gave $10,000 to leakers in possession of the file, with people describing it as “sounding unfinished” and “not worth the money”.
Despite Carti playing live many times in 2022 on his King Vamp tour, it would take until December before an update was provided. Carti affiliate DJ Akademiks would post on Twitter that the album was coming in January, and Carti would make his own post on Christmas Day with new cover art simply stating, “love all my supporters – it’s time”.
It was, in fact, not time.
Carti was arrested on December 29th for allegedly choking his 14-week pregnant girlfriend, and despite being bonded out a day later, the album remained unreleased. DJ Swamp Izzo would claim in February that he was executive producer for the album, and that it was already done. Producer F1LTHY later claimed that Carti had a whole album recorded but it was scrapped due to leakers “ruining everything”.
On the 2nd of June, Carti would drop his first official single in two years, “Popular”, with Madonna and The Weeknd. Despite his usually ravenous fanbase who worship every piece of music that bears his name, the reception to Carti’s two-line feature was almost universally negative, with people claiming it sounded like it was meant for a different song or that he was on the other side of the room when he recorded it. With fans disappointed, Carti needed to do something to win them back.
The Antagonist tour was announced in July, with US and European dates beginning in September and ending in December. However, just like his album, this tour would never end up coming to fruition. It was postponed multiple times for around a year straight and eventually quietly cancelled. And unlike the album, there was no excuse given.
However, in late 2023 fans would once again be given hope. On August 30, another Music album cover would be released on Carti’s website, and on Carti’s birthday he previewed two new songs, “Problem Child” featuring Travis Scott and “Vetements Jeans” with Lil Uzi Vert. All signs looked good, and after Carti revealed that he had been recording his album in a Parisian cave studio, he and Pharrell Williams would simultaneously post a new album cover to Instagram, with a new title – I Am Music. The official rollout had finally begun.
On December the 8th, Carti would post the first in a series of music videos to his Instagram account, a song with no official title but dubbed by fans as “Different Day”. Following it would be “2024”, “H00DBYAIR”, “BACKR00MS”, “EVILJ0RDAN” and “KETAMINE”. The first one was the most relevant, though, with the bridge containing the all-important message “2024, Music“. Fans finally had another confirmed date for the new album, and with an entire year for Carti to release it there was no way he could mess it up. Right?
2024 started off badly, with DJ Akademiks announcing in January that Carti had pushed the album release date back once again due to Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign‘s impending album Vultures 1. However, this wasn’t all bad news, as singles “CARNIVAL” and “F*K SUMN” both contained verses from Carti, with “CARNIVAL” becoming his first-ever song to top the Billboard Hot 100. Carti would also feature on “I LUV IT”, the lead single from Camila Cabello‘s album C,XOXO. The hype was at an all-time high for an imminent release.
Again, Carti squandered this opportunity and went radio silent for three months. But at Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash festival in June, fans would once again be given hope in the form of two new songs played live, “ALL RED” and “F**K ON MY DJ”. In the following months, the rollout would once again start up, with various NBA teams posting messages to social media telling Carti to drop the album. He would officially drop “ALL RED” and “Timeless” with The Weeknd on streaming in September. Despite “ALL RED” blatantly stealing rapper Future‘s vocal stylings, and parts of Carti’s verse on “Timeless” being speculated to be AI-generated, fans were once again excited and ready for a drop.
On September 12th, Carti made what seemed like the most important announcement of the entire rollout. Pre-orders of vinyls, CDs and bundles for the new album were shown on Instagram, and the official album title was confirmed to be I Am Music. With only three months left in the year, all the pieces were coming together for a late autumn or winter release. While fans were cautious to celebrate, there was no denying that there was more evidence than ever for an album release, and the presence of new singles proved that Carti had been in the studio recording.
Weeks went by. September ended with little information. Carti stayed silent throughout October. In November, Carti debuted the unreleased song “WHAT’S MY NAME” at the ComplexCon festival, and stated that Kanye was producing for the album. However, Carti was filmed after the concert asking fans if he should drop December or January, a worrying indictment of his promise that the album would be released by the end of 2024. Nevertheless, most fans stayed confident.
On the 27th, Carti announced that he would be playing his new album live at Rolling Loud, on December the 15th. Five unreleased songs were played, including two that hadn’t been heard in any form before, but no release date for the album was given. Only 16 days remained in the year, and only two of them were Fridays, when artists usually release music.
Fans started to become concerned about the release date, and speculation ran rampant. The 20th, they said, because it was the first Friday after Rolling Loud. The 25th, to mark four years since the release of his last album Whole Lotta Red. The 27th, the last Friday of the year. All these dates passed, and nothing happened. The hashtag #IAMLIAR briefly trended on Twitter, and people started mass unfollowing Carti’s social media accounts. Fans started to realise they had been tricked again, and for the fourth year in a row, there would be no new Playboi Carti album.
As New Year’s Day rolled in, everyone in the world was celebrating. Everyone except Carti fans, who now were back at square one, having no information about if the album was even going to come out at all. It was like the clock had been reset to 2021, except this time fans had been burned too many times before to be forgiving. The perception of Playboi Carti has been unanimously negative since the start of 2025, with certain outlier fans doxxing the location of his son’s school.
Carti is the Icarus of modern rap, constantly baiting his audience with false promises and missed release dates, who has finally flown too close to the sun and angered the few of his fans who remained trusting. He set an entire year as a deadline and still managed to miss it. The Jimi Hendrix Experience‘s entire discography was released in the time it has taken for this man to not drop one album. Juice WRLD and King Von both have more releases than Carti in the past four years, and they’re dead.
And even if it did come out, would it be worth the wait? As of late, Carti seems to have gone the Kanye route, with less and less original work and more reliance on outside production and AI-generated vocals. And even his original work has failed to push boundaries in the way Die Lit or his self-titled mixtape did, with his shift to a lower-pitched voice giving it a boring, generic Atlanta rap sound. What’s the point of spending four years on a rollout if the material you produce sounds like it could’ve come out four years ago anyway?
The future is unclear for I Am Music, and Playboi Carti’s career as a whole. However, one thing is undeniable – these prolonged, pump-fake rollouts are eroding trust within the modern rap scene. By prioritizing short-term hype and virality over consistent delivery, artists risk alienating even their most diehard supporters. The I Am Music saga is a cautionary tale that the cost of breaking faith with fans will outweigh any fleeting spike in engagement.
