Hip-Hop's FutureShock Visionary

How Playboi Carti helped shape modern rap, with an assist from punk zines, Bach, and vampire iconography

- JEFF IHAZA

PLAYBOI CARTI tells me his mood of late can be described as “punk monk.” He means it sort of holistically. As if devoutly observing a religious practice, the rapper spends every single day in the studio; his current project is the deluxe version, due this spring, of his recent album Whole Lotta Red. Carti says he barely even sleeps, preferring the Zen of the creative process. He splits his time between living in Atlanta and flying to California to see his son, though he’s plotting a move to New York, eyeing places on the Lower East Side. “It’s a city that I can get lost in,” he says.

“Punk Monk” is also the title of one of the more memorable cuts from Whole Lotta Red, which topped the charts upon release in December. Carti offers devilishly candid assessments of his frustrations with the music industry, unabashedly naming names. “They tried to turn me into a white boy, but I’m not Lil Dicky,” Carti growls in his newly minted vocal register — a grizzly squawk that sounds untethered from the limitations of human vocal cords. Conceptually, the song represents a formal juxtaposition of vibes, like meditating in a mosh pit. It’s an idea central to the Carti philosophy. The 24-year-old has long professed punk-rock inspirations, but now he’s reconciling them with something that resembles inner peace. “Some people don’t know how to be alone, but I love it,” Carti explains. “ ‘Punk Monk’ is just an anthem of being alone in this game, and the people that you got, you can keep them right there because that’s all you need.”