Jordan Carter, A.K.A Playboi Carti, teased new music this past weekend over his Instagram story and spam Instagram page. Carti has not dropped music since 2020 and is infamously ominous with information regarding new music. 

Carti continues to have a huge cult following despite the lack of music, with over 30 million monthly listeners. He is one of the few current rappers with all their albums above one billion streams. Other rappers on this list include Travis Scott, A$AP Rocky and Juice WRLD.

Carti teased an entirely new song titled “ur the moon” on his spam account opium_00pium, where it gained over 20 million plays in less than 48 hours. Along with this, he teased a new snippet that remains untitled over his Instagram story. 

The posts from Carti also gained reposts and praise from The Weekend, Pharell Williams, Travis Scott and other famous individuals.

In a conversation with DJ Akademics, who announced the release date of Carti’s last album, “Whole Lotta Red”, Carti confirmed a drop of his new album, “Music,” sometime in January. 

Fans of Carti speculate a drop on New Year’s Day due to Carti alluding to dropping music on Monday in an earlier tweet and another tweet from a close affiliate of Carti saying “0101.”

Carti has been a king of the underground since 2015, reinventing sounds and style within the underground scene and pop culture. 

Carti came up around the trap age of rap and the underground in 2015 but reinvented the sound by bringing a cloud rap and plugg style to the scene. 

He gained this sound from working with members of the A$AP mob and producers such as Mexico Dro and Pi’erre Bourne, who are deemed alongside Carti as the creators of these sounds.

Carti is an always-changing musician, ranging from plugg and trap styles in his earlier days to a Rage/Ethereal style vibe in his recent days with albums such as “Whole Lotta Red” and soon-to-be “Music.”

Carti is why the emergence of all these rage rappers such as Yeat, Osamason, Glock40spaz, Ken Carson and many more have become popular. Carti is also why the underground rap scene has had a resurgence in the past three years.

Emerging rappers dominate the charts upon releases like Ken Carson, Destroy Lonely and Yeat all credit Carti for their sounds.

With his record label/collective titled Opium consisting of members such as Ken Carson, Destroy Lonely and Homoxide Gang, a new sound and life has been brought to the underground scene. 

The Opium record label has a very niche and specific style; whether in the sounds of their music or the way they dress, they have created an iconic style within pop culture. 

Paired with Opium’s hardstyle metal and punk-like sounds is also a euphoric and dark ethereal sound that they layer behind hard-hitting 808s, claps and high hats. This mix of rage and ethereal has drawn attention to Opium members in the past, with songs like Yale by Ken Carson and “If Looks Could Kill” from Destroy Lonely.

These sounds can be accredited to the producers Carti has signed to the label, including Starboy, F1lthy, Art Dealer, Gab3, Lil88, Outtatown, and many more, cultivating this grunge hardcore sound.

Here is a playlist I have created with some of the defining songs of the collective if you have not heard them yet. 

Opium is at an all-time buzz with the recent announcement of Carti’s rumored drop in January. With Drake shouting out Ken Carson and mainstream media outlets such as Complex covering the release, rap fans and Carti’s enjoyers are set for what seems to be one of the biggest albums. 

Voelker can be reached at [email protected].