Playboi Carti: Can we listen in good conscience?

If you live anywhere other than under a rock then you are aware that Playboi Carti has finally dropped his highly anticipated and long awaited third studio album MUSIC. The album has gotten mixed reviews from audiences and critics in a very similar way Whole Lotta Red did back in 2020. Personally, I can’t get enough of it. In a lot of ways, I think it shows Carti in his truest form and offers more variety in tone and sound than any of his past projects. However, I am not here to discuss the musical legacy of rap’s newest superstar. The rollout for MUSIC, while done very successfully, has quietly reopened a door to Carti’s troubled past, and when I say past I mean hardly two years ago. If you were unaware, Carti was arrested on a felony assault charge after him and his crew allegedly attacked his pregnant girlfriend outside of his home. According to police reports and video footage from the scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QWJUg2lwJk), Carti himself hit her and choked her as she tried to leave his house after an argument over a paternity test. He also followed her to her car and tried to pull her out and covered her mouth so she couldn’t use her car’s SOS feature to call the police. If you watch the footage, read the articles, and compare this incident to other previous displays of Carti’s character, whether that be his publicized negligence as a father or other incidents of alleged or documented violence, you will likely have no problem believing the validity of this story. I’m not here to question whether or not he did any of this stuff; it’s pretty safe to say that it’ all true, and I would say that is widely agreed upon by the public. That being said, Carti and his music are seeing more success than ever right now. He has managed to dodge cancel culture with a track record that would put anyone else’s career in the ground. While some may see this as an achievement on Carti’s behalf, I see it as negligence on behalf of the audience (myself included). This poses a plethora of questions regarding the ethics behind our music listening decisions. Is it okay to pick and choose who we cancel based on the quality of their work? How reprehensible must someone’s behavior be before we choose to actively boycott their work? And most importantly, do music listeners have a moral responsibility to actively contemplate and evaluate the ethics of musical artists in order to make a decision whether or not those artists deserve support?

I’ve sat with this article for months and months trying to figure out how I should continue it (wrote the first paragraph March 20th), but I’ve come to the conclusion that there really isn’t much more for me to say on the subject. I definitely don’t possess the answers to these questions and I don’t think anyone should look externally for validation in circumstances like this. The process of figuring this dilemma out is an internal one. It requires you to think about it a bit, and it requires you to be honest with yourself and listen to your gut. I can tell you that I am capable of enjoying his work and that I don’t look up to him whatsoever. But it definitely took me time with this information for me to come to that conclusion. In fact, it has taken two periods of that; I remember reacting to all of this when I was first getting into Carti. Needless to say, I continued listening, more out of negligence and carelessness than out of any kind of true emotional resolve. It’s a lot easier to not think about these things than try to figure them out, whether or not I should be listening to something I LOVE even though the person at the helm of it is a bad, bad person. But I think the way I came to my decision was actually quite simple. Just think about it. Confront those uncomfortable feelings. Be aware of the reality of the situation and don’t forget it. Doesn’t mean you have to stop listening to him. Just means you’ll be listening to the music of an asshole, which we already do all the time. And if you have a hard time listening to him after thinking about it, then you don’t need to continue listening. Lots of people will read this and think “duh.” But I think there’s a difference between thoughtless listening and thought-out listening, meaning I do think it’s mega important to think about this stuff. Every time I turn his music on, I remember that shit he did. I don’t stuff it to the back of my mind. It’s not something I’ll ever forget again. This is my way of holding him accountable. Not that he’ll ever notice or give a shit, but for me it helps justify listening to his music knowing that I’m not forgetting about the crimes he committed. Again, this isn’t the answer to the Playboi Carti dilemma, as there is no correct answer. This is just what my thought process has looked like the past few months. I think the biggest thing to remember is that it’s up to you how you handle it. But I would really encourage you to think about it, and when you’re done, think about it some more. At the end of the day, what is important is that we are thinking about what we do and acting with intent and not trying to fool ourselves into not giving a shit.