Playboi Carti – Music
Carti returns with a 75 minute behemoth that abandons any pretence of quality control. The album is crafted by an extraordinarily long cast of producers, which doesn’t exactly imbue the album with much vision or purpose. Stylistically, the album shifts towards a less experimental style and abandons the androgynous vampire persona that underpinned Whole Lotta Red.
The album has by far the least interesting and tamest music of his career. Several tracks sound severely dated in the trap game that Carti’s style was previously an antidote for (WAKE UP FILTHY, feat. Travis Scott, JUMPIN, feat. Lil Uzi Vert and TRIM, feat. Future). It is up to the deranged vocal performances to rescue boring and cliched trap beats like K POP, EVIL JORDAN and RADAR, though more often, Carti’s ‘deeper’ delivery borders on accidental comedy. The best beats are the extremely dissonant and distorted POP OUT (DY Krazy, DJH, Slowburnz), the Donda-esque gospel-trap, CRUSH (Travis Scott), Philly, with ominous country-western arpeggios (Cardo, Johnny Juliano), the galaxial, CHARGE THEM HOES A FEE (Wheezy), the bubbling europop electroarpeggiation on I SEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI (DJ Moon) and especially the black metal atmosphere on Cocaine Nose. He also flirts with selling out on several awful R&B cuts (RATHER LIE, BACKDOOR, TWIN TRIM), certainly not playing to his strengths.
Best Tracks: POP OUT, COCAINE NOSE
Losing My Edge Rating: 4/10
Released: March 14, 2025
Label: AWGE / Interscope
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2. Yung Lean
Swedish cloud rap legend Yung Lean veered towards hypnagogic and baroque pop ballads on the mostly mediocre, Jonatan, mostly produced by Rami Dawod. Mostly, the songs hark back to the 1990s but very few pack great rhythms and refrains (with the exception of the spacey power ballad, Horses). Other tracks return to his usual atmospheric style: Teenage Symphonies 4 God with sampled female melisma and beatless ambience, and the warped psychedelic production of Changes courtesy of electronic producer, Oneohtrix Point Never. There is also the grungy slowcore ballad My Life with Morricone-esque vibrating guitar tones and the saxophone-tinged emo-rap song, Swan Song, with a short keyboard coda.
Losing My Edge Rating: 5/10
Best Tracks: Horse
Released: 2 May, 2025
Label: World Affairs
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3. Rico Nasty
Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly ‘Rico Nasty’ married her high-octane aggro-rapping to punk rock and emo on Lethal, produced by Imad Royal. The album opens with the trap mission statement, WHO WANT IT, and the rap-rock single a la Limp Bizkit TEETHSUCKER (YEA3x) with booming bass and guitar, hectic delivery and a catchy refrain. On The Low is emo-rap (a la Lil Uzi Vert). PINK meanwhile is bland Carribean-tinged pop-rap (a la Doja Cat).Eat Me and Soul Snatcher are fairly standard trap creations a la Playboi Carti. SON OF A GUN returns to her typical heavy metal rapping style in a horrorcore atmosphere. At this point, the album takes a sudden U-Turn with 4 rock tracks: Smoke Break, pure hardcore punk mayhem, CRASH, driving emo rock (a la Modern Baseball / Front Bottoms), depressive rap-infused emo (a la Juice Wrld) and 80s dream-pop on Smile (which seemingly interpolates The Weeknd’s Save Your Tears). The album is impressively varied and often impactful, though clearly limited in originality.
Losing My Edge Rating: 6/10
Best Tracks: TEETHSUCKER (YEAx3), SMOKE BREAK
Released: May 16, 2025
Label: Fuelled By Ramen
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4. Esdeekid – Rebel
Liverpool’s breakout rap sensation ‘Esdeekid’, who maintains a mysterious and anonymous public persona, debuted on Rebel, an adapted version of American trap and ‘jerk’ cadences set to the cavernous urban atmosphere of Drill music, defined by a debaucherous lyricism violent delivery and a distorted production but most imminently, a protruding scouse accent. The beats are crafted by the equally reclusive, London-based, ‘Wraith9’ with a particularly innovative use of the keyboard to build atmosphere. 4raws sets the tone with a menacing atmosphere of dissonant synths, explosive vocal distortion and cutthroat bars. Several tracks vary on that method, like the slower but equally visceral, Panic with flickering electronics and the sketchy, Phantom. Elsewhere, there are novel productions from Wraith9 on Cali Man, crafted from breathing sound effects and a cacophony of drums and keyboards (almost reminiscent of Jpegmafia), 5am (feat. Fimiguerrero) with a slow-motion delivery over a glitchy riff, and LV Sandals, bordering on catchy and danceable but debased by a fractured and degrading beat. Even the straight-forward tracks (Prague, Dirty, Mist) contribute to the murky and nocturnal sketch of urban decadence, like a British take on Clipse’s classics.
Losing My Edge Rating: 7/10
Best Tracks: 4raws, Cali Man, LV Sandals
Released: 20 June, 2025
Label: XV / Livvy
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5. 21 Savage
Atlanta’s British-born rapper, Shéyaa Bin ‘21 Savage’ Abraham-Joseph, delivers yet another muted and sedate set of trap songs on WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STREETS. If any at all, MR RECOUP (feat. Drake) (Brinx Parker, Pierre, Whiskerprince) stands out due to the sparse beat. The buzzing strings sustaining across CODE OF HONOR (feat. G herbo) (Casper, Taurus) and the classy piano-backed. BIG STEPPER (D.A Got That Dope) set the two most emotional stories. Outside of that, there are few ideas or raps of note.
Losing My Edge Rating: 4/10
Best Tracks: Big Stepper
Released: December 12, 2025
Label: Slaughter Gang / Epic