"Whole Lotta Red" Sets Chicago Ablaze

Playboi Carti’s most electric performance to date set the bar for other artists at Lollapalooza. For himself and for fans, it was a long time coming.

There was a night in Philadelphia where I felt like a fish.

Soaked from head to toe, a friend and I slogged down and around street corners, desperate for a place to sit and take a deep breath but still buzzing from our evening.

The previous hours had been spent fighting for our lives among hundreds of strangers at the Fillmore, where a collection of rappers had just performed – headlined by Playboi Carti, on tour following his album “Die Lit.”

Now blocks away from the venue, it felt as if my chest was still shaking from the bass of “R.I.P.” Coincidentally, those same words read across my shirt – a tour motto for the opening act, Sheck Wes. Though as exhausted as I had ever been and physically bruised from the experience, I couldn’t heed the advice I advertised on my body that night.

Three years later in 2021, my thoughts are racing yet again.

The energy that Carti put on display at Lollapalooza on Thursday is palpable, even from thousands of miles away. Stunned with jealousy, I searched through Twitter and Reddit for every video of his performance that I could find. I wasn’t necessarily the Atlanta rapper’s biggest fan, but the primal scream he let out at the apex of “Rockstar Made” genuinely shook me to my core. I vicariously lived through the moment a dozen or so times before managing to put my phone away and rest my eyes.

Carti is no longer the artist I remembered seeing in 2018. He was just 21 then – the same age I am now. But it wasn’t just the energy of his music that caught my attention – a stylistic shift from the upbeat energetic feel that defined hits like “Shoota” and “Choppa Won’t Miss” on his previous album – it was a moment of euphoria that he seemed to share with the 100,000 strong tightly nestled beneath the Chicago skyline.

His voice was shot. And though only his eyes were visible beneath a mask that mirrored the colorway of his most recent studio album, “Whole Lotta Red,” I couldn’t help but feel that Carti’s smile was contagious.

“Chicago! I missed you motherfuckers!” he yelled, just before detonating the crowd with sound.

The show felt as if it was a homecoming not just for music fans who had missed live performances, but for Carti, too – an artist who beamed with pride as if he’d finally found himself after a tumultuous few years.

What I’ve always loved about Carti’s music, ever since the days of “Lost,” is his ability to make his listeners move. His first two albums invited intensity, but altogether featured largely uplifting themes tailor-made for viral acclaim.

“Whole Lotta Red” may have shocked a lot of listeners, who anticipated more of the same music that had turned Carti into a legitimate pop star.

“Magnolia,” for example, introduced much of the world to the rapper – a song that felt like it rose your heart rate involuntarily and transcended countless demographics and contexts across social media. TikTok was just a fledgling app then, but it goes without saying that the 2017 hit would’ve found massive success on the platform.

In the last three years since our paths had crossed, Playboi Carti has transformed as an artist and as an adult. His public persona was defined by controversy and criticism – I distinctly remembered fans bashing on the sound he had provided Drake with on “Pain 1993;” one part of a largely forgettable EP that the Toronto superstar released in 2020.

I admit that I, too, was surprised by the tone of WLR. “Over” and “Sky” certainly stuck out to me, but mostly because of how they were most similar to what I had been used to in Carti’s music. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made that it was radically different than his previous production. He’s daring to try something different and letting his own passion drive it, not someone else’s.

It reminded me of the first time I had heard Young Thug’s “Harambe” in 2016. Thug’s voice rattled over a beat that felt like a landslide; I was unprepared for the energy it brought. As a group of us listeners sat, perhaps a bit unsure how to process the intensity, one of my friends applauded it solely because he could feel that Thug wasn’t lowballing us. Not to take another shot at Drake, but that’s who we held up as a model of a pop artist void of energy in comparison. I’ve remembered the “Harambe” moment countless times since then, and it’s helped me gain appreciation for artists stretching the boundaries of their own perception.

In addition to the changes in the sound of his voice, people launched homophobic criticisms of Carti’s appearance and mocked his attraction to a music style that differed from the pop-rap that brought him to stardom. Carti’s music up until WLR, though something I loved, was fairly digestible.

It’s no surprise he sought to challenge that.

On “Punk Monk,” Carti voices concerns and frustrations about how he had felt detached from close friends and at times betrayed by his record label as he shot to stardom following “Die Lit” and even earlier in his career.

“I thought I had Pi’erre, but the label tricked me,” he says, referencing a feud between himself and Interscope Records – the record label to which both artists are signed. Carti goes on to repeat “I just worry ‘bout me” throughout the song.

It’s clear that what he was seeking wasn’t further acclaim, rather it was control. With WLR, Carti re-introduced himself with an intense, honest, and often vengeful sound – a sound he took another step forward this past week at Lollapalooza.

The result was an artist who appeared happier than he had ever been.

And the crowd who witnessed the moment is proof that the genuine honesty and passion on display in his WLR performances are what fans may have sought all along – not just from Carti, but for themselves.

An immediate reaction to the immense size of Carti’s crowd on Thursday is one of shock and horror. Though impressive, amid a (yet again) re-ignited coronavirus pandemic, the numbers felt dangerous. But in the place of obvious criticism I want to hammer something home:

Playboi Carti can’t be faulted for it. The fans shouldn’t be either.

What can Carti be expected to do? Not perform? Or what about the fans? Should they be expected to boycott the event?

Lollapalooza reported over 90% of fans showed proof of vaccination prior to entry. Whether or not that’s true, they had promised fans and artists would be safe. It falls to local, state, and federal officials to step in if they had any serious doubts (which they certainly should have).

Yes, without question, the event was dangerous. But those who should be blamed are lawmakers who decided to press on with the event despite those obvious warning signs. The event is an annual Chicago staple that brings in massive revenue for the city; a prioritization of cash isn’t something all-too-new to the American pandemic experience.

On display was the longing we’ve had for this kind of connection again. Briefly shattered were fears and anxieties that have gripped us since last March – ones that are fully real and wreaked legitimate havoc on our lives.

What we saw during Carti’s live rendition of “Rockstar Made” was a euphoric collision between an artist stepping into his prime and a crowd unleashed from a year of panic and isolation.

In more ways than one: the perfect storm.