šŸŽµ 2024 Is Playboi Cartiā€™s Year

Plus, we dropped our ā€œBest Albums Listā€ too early. Big Thiefā€™s mastermind goes solo.

Mic-Check Newsletter
7 min readJan 9, 2024

Got riffs? The Smashing Pumpkins want them! The open call follows the departure of guitarist Jeff Schroeder, who left the band in October after 15 years with the group.

Click here for a Spotify playlist with the songs mentioned in this article.

BIGGEST Songs of the Month šŸ“ˆ

Playboi Carti, the Atlanta enigma with a whispery vocal caress and a knack for igniting mosh pits, has become synonymous with a genre he helped birth: rage. Think swirling future bass melodies, thumping trap beats, and ad-libs that burrow into your brain like sonic worms. While Miss the Rage by Carti and Trippie Redd in 2021 officially christened the subgenre, Cartiā€™s 2018 masterpiece, Die Lit, laid the groundwork with distorted 808s and punk-infused energy paving the way for a new era of hip-hop.

Fast forward to 2020, and Cartiā€™s genre-defying Whole Lotta Red took rage to places uncharted. He solidified his role as a trendsetter, inspiring the likes of Ken Carson and Yeat, who took the baton and ran with it, molding the contemporary rage sound. The silence post-Whole Lotta Red was deafening. Rumors swirled, anticipation grew, and fans clamored for any sign ofā€¦

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