“Whole Lotta Red”: An Album that Influenced an Entire Subgenre of Rap.

“Rage Rap”, is a genre of rap music that people like to joke is an old head’s worst nightmare. Known for its unique beats and mumbled lyrics, Rage Rap has become one of the most popular subgenres of rap. But what started this all? Well it started off with the album “Whole Lotta Red” made by Playboi Carti (real name, Jordan Terrell Carter), at the time nobody really liked the album. Carter had never made an album before with that type of Rap style, sure he had made plenty of songs that fell under the “Mumble Rap” category but Whole Lotta Red wasn’t just that. In this album he changed the pitch of his voice on the entire album to be very high, fans even dubbed this unique voice Carter had “Baby Voice”. Not just that but in more than a few songs in the album he screeched the lyrics into the mic or made his voice really, raspy, all this combined led to fans joking about how the album was rapped in “Cartinese” and some fans straight up saying it was unintelligible. Now that I’ve talked about how everyone hated it when it first came out, let me tell you about how everyone changed their opinions about WLR a few months after the album was released. Several months after Whole Lotta Red was first released there was a giant shift in opinion, among fans and critics. Fans changed their opinion and said things like “It wasn’t bad”, “Sounds better after re-listening”, and some even saying that they couldn’t wait to see Carti drop more songs with this type of style of music. Critics praised the album mainly for its influence. Albums such as “Trip at Knight” (by Trippie Redd. His real name being Michael Lamar White the fourth), “Teen X : Relapsed” (by Ken Carson. His real name being Kenyatta Lee Bettis Frazier Jr.), and “Up 2 Me” (by Yeat. His real name being Noah Oliver Smith), having clear and heavy influence from Whole Lotta Red. Even now there are many albums that were heavily influenced by Whole Lotta Red, but more importantly artists that were influenced by the album. There are several musical careers that wouldn’t have happened if Whole Lotta Red never dropped. Some of the artists I previously mentioned that made albums influenced by Whole Lotta Red (Ken Carson and Yeat) and some I haven’t mentioned such as “Destroy Lonely” (real name: Bobby Wardell Sandimanie the third), “Osamason” (real name: Amari Deshawn Adham Middleton) and “Che” (real name: Chase Shaun Mitchell) had their entire careers influenced by WLR and wouldn’t be as popular as the currently are if that album were to never had dropped. Though Whole Lotta Red was disliked by critics and hated by fans when it first released, over time it became literally the most influential Rage Rap album to ever be released. No other Rage Rap album has ever met the same height of influence and popularity that Whole Lotta Red has and no album probably will ever reach that level of popularity and influence.