Playboi Carti is opening up about his love life and new music.
As he gears up for his second studio album Whole Lotta Red, the 22-year-old rapper graces the Summer Music issue The FADER. He invited the magazine to his home in Atlanta, which he shares with girlfriend Iggy Azalea.
The two met in 2018, while Carti was overseas on tour and moved in together by December that year. “Once I started talking to her, I just cut f everybody,” he says. “It was over with.”
Their relationship remains strictly personal—they haven’t collaborated and don’t plan to. “That’s a whole ‘nother thing,” he says. “I support everything she does.”
Carti has created around 50 songs for Whole Lotta Red, some from his dining room table. “I could be done if I wanted to,” he says. “I’m just trying to top shit. I might make the hardest song ever tomorrow.”
The FADER heard some the new music, including one where Carti says “RIP Yams” over an 8-bit beat. Another song “sounds like it could soundtrack a 2019 Miami Vice remake,” while other track titles include “Cancun” and a song that fans have been calling “Molly” or “No Stylist.” Trippie Redd and Gunna also make appearances.
With this album, Carti hopes to bridge the gap between his self-titled mixtape and his 2018 debut Die Lit, and become a household name. “It’s like I’m some best kept secret—f**k that,” he says.
He was also recently in the studio with Metro Boomin. “I got a whole ‘nother tape with this ni**a,” reveals Carti. “That’s why my head’s fucked up. This shit could go on my album, but if it goes on the album, then we gotta change the whole thing.”
These days, Carti spends most his time in Atlanta by himself and only speaks to the same three or four people every day. “I don’t need no ni**as around me,” he says. “I be inspiring ni**as too much and they be taking from me. It’s only halfway. I don’t win.”
He has remained out the spotlight and posts infrequently on social media, a deliberate decision. “Let me give it out the way I wanna give it out. I don’t say a lot, so when I do say something, I just want people to take me serious.”