"I knew WLR was a classic when it first dropped" Stop. You weren't there. A brief history

I feel like I need to address a common sentiment that I am seeing spread from post-WLR era people on here that either don't like the album, have a problem with it, etc. I'm not here to change your mind on what you think of the album, but I do need to set the record straight on the facts and mythology surrounding his last release, Whole Lotta Red.

If you're a person that believes that you really liked WLR and thought it was amazing when it first dropped, I doubt that you listened to it on release night. I think it is perfectly valid to have listened to it later and come to your own conclusions on the quality of WLR. If it connected with you instantly, great. But that isn’t really how it went down for those of us who were here.

Firstly, let me break down the context of WLR’s release. WLR, similarly to IAM, had an absurdly long wait time with just as many twists and turns along the way. Before the night of WLR’s release, there had been many months and years worth of leaks, breadcrumbs, assumed producer credits etc. on what WLR would sound like, its aesthetic, etc. At the time of WLR’s release, the assumed sound and songs that would be on it would have been in the style of the leaks at the time, including leaks such as ‘Molly’, ‘Buffy the Body’, ‘Whole lotta neon’, etc. These were the songs and style that everyone expected, and they weren’t that different from Die Lit in terms of the voice and flows, just an evolution. Then, leading up to the release date, Carti switched the direction of his album wildly, and got in touch with Kanye, Rubin, etc. These meetings shifted the expected sound of the album drastically, and as a result it basically sounded nothing like anything the ‘in-the-know’ fans were expecting. The reaction to this wasn’t unanimous and few thought that a new wave of underground style rap was invented. It really divided the fanbase and turned a lot of his fans away. At least initially.

Secondly, if you think that IAM was rushed, I’d have to argue that WLR was rushed far more even if you enjoyed the album more. Songs were created literally in the last couple weeks (if not days) before the album released, and the discrepancies between when the music was recorded was drastically noticeable. ‘New N3on’, which was previously leaked and recorded much earlier than most of WLR, sounds nothing like the rest of the album and sticks out like a sore thumb. If you think that the flow and pacing doesn’t lineup in IAM, the same problem exists in WLR.

Thirdly, While WLR can be lauded as ‘groundbreaking’ and experimental, I want to remind you that it wasn’t assumed to be like that before it was released. People didn’t have the expectation that all Carti does was push boundaries. IAM, which might not be as experimental as WLR fans hoped it would be, isn’t really a breaking of trend or reversion of Carti’s quality as an artist. I would say that this album is more of a refinement and more subtle evolution from the edginess present in WLR. You don’t have to like this choice of direction, but to think that Carti typically ‘pushes boundaries’, I think that you are only looking at his WLR era and missing a greater context of the music he had been making for years prior. 

If you’re simply thinking that ‘this doesn’t match the quality of a 5 year wait’, then really I think you’re also missing that argument would remain true for his previous work. Again, you don’t have to like this album, but I wanted to respond to these common complaints that feel reductive.