How did Playboi Carti get his name?
Like many Atlanta artists of his era, Playboi Carti came up fast in the music business and became a big deal in a very short space of time. However, unlike the rest, he had a musical mystique from the moment he arrived and was unapologetically bold.
Although it’s very easy to cast the ‘Magnolia’ rhymer aside and consider him merely another undeserving mumble rapper who managed to hold on to a career, he created a huge amount of buzz with very little material, meaning he produced something rare and in-demand. In fact, he still is in demand.
The lyricist started out as a humble musician on SoundCloud but developed a unique style when he began mixing with Atlanta rapper Fat Man Key and other acts on the weird and wonderful record label that is Awful Records.
In a 2015 vlog featuring Carti alongside Ian Conor and some of the rapper’s other friends, Carti spoke about his life before fame and how he came up, disclosing, “I went from bagging groceries to working at this place called H&M.”
Still, that was the emcee’s life just before he moved to New York. In an interview, the Whole Lotta Red creator took fans further back to when he was a child and his home life. Speaking with Complex, the emcee explained, “When I look back at being young in Atlanta, before this music shit, I just laugh. My mama couldn’t tell me shit. Nobody could tell me shit!”
However, like many billionaire hip-hop icons we know today, Playboi Carti had a drive to stay away from crime and focus on music, even at the expense of his grades. Admitting he abandoned school, the musician explained, “I wasn’t going to college, I wasn’t going to the army, I wasn’t doing none of that shit. But shit costs, and I always had to get money. I was never on my ass.”
Initially, the ‘BACKR00MS’ performer leant on Fat Man Key and Awful producer Ethereal as he explored his sound. Still, he wasn’t known by any particular name when he was in the studio recording. He was merely finding his lane, his image and his creative direction.
Like many artists, the rapper we know today as Playboi Carti is an evolution of another artist. Before he took on the name he has now, in 2011, he decided to name himself Sir Carter. This is when he began in Atlanta. Although none of the recordings were officially released, he did release some amateur music videos, including his own version of French Montana’s ‘So High’ featuring Curren$y.
His style was notably different from when he entered the mainstream, but the name Playboi Carti was adopted by the emcee in 2013 when he simply changed his name on SoundCloud, which was already gaining a lot of traction.
Although he has now become a household name, The New York Times once described Carti as “almost an incidental rapper, more at ease with the performance of the role than with the actual act of rapping.” Currently, fans are awaiting Carti’s long-delayed album, I Am Music, which will be his first project in five years.