Even essentially the most unemployed Opium acolyte would have issue parsing the layers of context that encompass Playboi Carti’s newest shock music video: a manic, self-sampling collaboration with YoungBoy By no means Broke Once more paired set to a montage of blurred iPhone self-shots, Affect-font sloganeering, and a strobing, thumbnail-sized picture of YB. The observe initially surfaced on Kanye West’s Instagram account as a Ye/Youngboy crossover on Wednesday night as an obvious promotion for the disgraced mogul’s upcoming YZY SZN 10 vogue line, mere hours earlier than Carti’s model would seem on his finsta, jeeringly captioned “DIS MY SONG LIL BRA @ye.”
Irrespective of which of the 2 feuding prestige-rap auteurs recorded their model of “ALIVE” first, the Opium label boss has staked a decisive declare over the tune, which already sampled a barked-out Swamp Izzo ad-lib from MUSIC standout “Crank” to start with. Hopping on a F1LTHY-produced beat that fuses his current style for industrial lure cut-ups with the bass-led minimalism of “New Slaves,” Carti moans, croaks, and snarls by means of a sequence of opulent flexes. Black Chrome Hearts belts recall karate courses. His maids have maids of their very own. He’s too geeked to even end his verse correctly, as a substitute signing off with an ecstatic yawp.
Youngboy, who’s sufficient of a Carti fan in his personal proper to have dropped a full album of Entire Lotta Crimson-inspired rage music in 2023, sounds equally amped, opening his verse with a “CARNIVAL” interpolation and YZY product placement (lending credibility to the idea that this was, in reality, Ye’s tune first) earlier than launching right into a breathless shit-popping session, chaining triplet flows and Autotuned wails as he celebrates his newfound freedom from federal jail. It’s among the many most unhinged work thus far from two rappers who’ve already constructed cults round their hyperactive subversion: a veritable supervillain team-up. If the observe actually did belong to Ye to start with, then that simply makes Carti’s remix much more diabolical.
Take heed to the tune right here.