Whole Lotta Cap: An end to the Carti crumb trail?

After four-and-a-half years of waiting, in mid-February, the cryptic ad-lib rap pioneer Playboi Carti began to make the first moves of the rollout of his I Am Music album. First in Miami, and then in Los Angeles, I Am Music Spotify billboards have been popping up. Then, on March 12, 2025, a video of Carti’s backup dancer, Blackhaine, saying “new Carti album this friday” surfaced on Carti's Instagram handle.

He alluded to plans for a project called Music in 2022, and this seems to be the grand finale. Although there is a lot of buzz and hype, there always is: fans of [] have seen this dance before.

Over the past few years, Carti has gained a reputation for leading his fans on an indefinite wild goose chase. The internet seems to be swimming with an ungodly amount of leaked songs and beats (his password must just be password123), seductive tweets regarding music coming “soon 🧛🧛”, and Instagram posts about collaborations “loading...”

On July 28th, 2019, Carti said that he was intending to release what would be his #1 U.S billboard album, Whole Lotta Red, in 60 days - the album released on Christmas next year. In mid-August of 2021, the @playboicarti handle on Instagram had a single post on it, with a caption alluding to the drop of an album called Narcissist coming in that coming November: radio silence. Exactly two years after the release date of Whole Lotta Red, Carti tweeted “love all my supporters... it’s time.” Nothing was released.