Playboi Carti Drops Whole Lotta Red Album: Listen

This is not a drill. Playboi Carti has finally dropped his highly anticipated sophomore album, Whole Lotta Red.

On Friday (Dec. 25), Playboi Carti released his new LP, which arrives two years after he delivered his 2018 debut album, Die Lit.  The 24-track project includes songs titled “Stop Breathing,” “Slay3r” and “Vamp Anthem,” and the previously released single “@ Meh.” Guest appearances include Future, Kid Cudi and Kanye West.

Whole Lotta Red has been a coveted hip-hop project for nearly two years. The rapper first began teasing the album in 2018, and a year later, the release date became a waiting game since the announcement of the LP’s existence. In July of 2019, Playboi Carti announced he would be dropping the album within two months of making the public statement during a performance in Milwaukee, Wis.

“I’m trying to drop that shit in the next 60 days,” Carti said at the time, speaking on WLR. He went on to say, “I ain’t gon’ lie. It feel like we worked too hard for this moment. So, I’ma do this shit with no features.” Then, nothing.

In 2020, fans have been anxiously awaiting its release. Carti hinted that new music was coming on April 14 of this year when he uploaded new artwork to his Instagram page. However, the post didn’t include any accompanying details. On April 16, Carti released the new single, “@ Meh,” after announcing the record on social media. “@ meh ! out now !,” Carti tweeted about the Neeko Baby, Deskhop and Jetsonmade-produced track.

In September, Iggy Azalea, the mother of Carti’s son, Onyx, refused to give fans an official release date for WLR but promised the album would be something worth waiting for.

“I’m never gonna tell you when Whole Lotta Red is dropping, you guys. Nice try,” Iggy explained. “I can tell you Whole Lotta Red is amazing and it’s next level and it’s way better than anything any of the other people I heard doing, for real.”

Two years of teasing this album started to rub rap fans the wrong way. Anytime Carti posts on social media, his supporters think WLR is on the way, but then nothing drops and they vent their frustrations on Twitter and in the comment section of plenty of Instagram accounts.

On Dec. 6, rising Atlanta rapper Mario Judah decided to take matters into his own fans and demand Carti drop the album. In a video posted to Twitter, Judah threatened to leak songs from Whole Lotta Red one at a time if Carti failed to deliver the album. Judah’s ultimatum came after Carti popped back up on social media and seemingly hinted the album would arrive after all.

“dont fuck this up carti…you have until 6:00pm ⚠️⚠️@playboicarti,” Judah tweeted.

A few hours later that day, Judah dropped “Bih Yah,” a song he wrote, recorded, produced, mixed and engineered himself that sounds strikingly like Carti’s tone and delivery.

Unfortunately, Judah’s threats fell on deaf ears because once again fans had been bamboozled into thinking Carti would stop toying with their emotions and drop his highly anticipated album.

On the afternoon of Dec. 10, the Atlanta rapper posted an image of himself on Instagram with the caption, “i kAnT bELieVE mY ALBUm iS AbOUT 2 dRoP . wTF ps . i goT A tANK @ THe cAsTLE n0w thx. YE.”

Judah later celebrated on social media following Carti’s announcement. “So after warning…after warning…playboi carti is finally going to drop WLR we did it boys,” he tweeted. Yet, the date still came and went again with no album.

Finally, on Tuesday (Dec. 22), Carti officially announced the release date for the LP as Christmas Day and revealed the cover art. He also released a controversial merch line to correspond with the album’s release.

Without further ado, Whole Lotta Red is finally here.

Stream Playboi Carti’s new album, Whole Lotta Red, below.