Playboi Carti
photo: wojciech pędzich · cc by 4.0 ↗Jordan Carter grew up in Riverdale, Atlanta, cut his teeth on SoundCloud as Sir Cartier, and by his mid-20s had rewired mainstream rap around adlib-as-instrument minimalism and a helium-pitched "baby voice." Signed to A$AP Rocky's AWGE and later running his own Opium imprint, he pushed the sparse, menacing sound of Whole Lotta Red (2020) into what critics now call "rage" — a genre he's as much architect of as inheritor.
Carti signed to Rocky's AWGE imprint in 2016 and has called him a mentor who showed him how to turn hazy, drugged-out atmosphere and high fashion into a rap persona rather than just a rap style.
listen forLine up Rocky's breakout "Peso" against Carti's "New Tank": both bury a laid-back, half-mumbled verse under thick, echoing haze, treating the beat's atmosphere as the real star over the words themselves.
Critics and Carti himself have repeatedly drawn the line from Young Thug's warped, singsong ad-libs to Carti's own — Thug proved a rapper's voice could bend into something closer to a second instrument than a plain delivery of words.
listen forCompare Thug's "Stoner" to Carti's "Location": both stretch and slur the vocal until the hook is more melodic texture than lyric, with ad-libs doing as much work as the verse.
Chief Keef's chant-heavy drill sound gave Carti a blueprint for turning ad-libs into a wall of sound; writers have traced Carti's flow directly back to a drier, more percussive version of Keef's ad-lib style.
listen forSet Keef's "I Don't Like" against Carti's "R.I.P.": both ride a menacing, repetitive chant more than a conventional verse, letting a hook-like ad-lib carry the track's energy.