Christmas Day 2020: mainstream rapper Playboi Carti dropped his most polarizing album, “Whole Lotta Red.” He unleashed his new vampire aesthetic, one filled with synth and 808-driven sound that called rage onto the world. For many, this was completely new and out of left-field—especially for longtime fans of the rapper and the trap genre as a whole. Looking into the underground music scene, Carti changed the trajectory of rap by amplifying smaller trends invented by other artists such as cloud rappers Black Kray and Lancey Foux. Fans of Carti’s vampire theme may want to explore the rabbit hole of dark-sounding vampire-inspired art made by those with an interest for the macabre and alternative to the limelight like the listed artists. But if you want an artist who explores vampire theming in their music more than Playboi Carti while genuinely caring for their experimental, boundary-pushing art, try Georgia’s other resident vampire rapper and blender of many genres Cartier God.
This article will strictly discuss these two artists’ music and not their lives outside of it.
First off, who is Cartier God? And how could he hold a candle to the likes of Playboi Carti?
Cartier God has been active since 2011 with the seapunk collective Ocean Gang, an early pioneer of cloud rap alongside other collectives like Raider Klan and Metro Zu. In 2018, Cartier God also joined the majorly influential experimental rap collective in the underground music scene, Reptilian Club Boyz, responsible for popularizing genres such as plugg and even HexD (somewhat). Through his affiliations and work with music collectives alone, Cartier God likely influenced many underground rappers including Playboi Carti while staying in the shade of the underground. For example, Ocean Gang predicted so many music trends, such as plugg and pluggnb, with projects like 2012’s deep cut “Ocean Gang or Drown.” You could genuinely fool some people into thinking that project came out in the late 2010s with how the album is produced so psychedelically and with more recent trends and tropes within these circles.
From the underground, Cartier God was tirelessly releasing project after project as a solo artist, while Carti was riding on the high of his celebrity status instead of dedicating himself to his craft. Cartier God released 17 projects between 2021 and 2025 alone. Within these projects, Cartier God explored the genres of cloud rap, experimental rap, trap, vaportrap, house, hypnagogic pop, alternative R&B, plugg and pluggnb just to name some genres. Maybe not all of them are to your taste, but the sheer experimentation with so many genres is commendable and he exposes his listeners to so many different sounds which sound from subpar like “Love Me” to really well-done like the collaborations with LazyGod.
The most bold creative decision during this era for Cartier God is the experimental vampire rap masterpiece “Gold Fangz II,” whereas Carti’s best project is “Whole Lotta Red” for the exciting vampire-themed rage sound it popularized. “Gold Fangz II” does something new every song with its musical consistency instead of just being a collection of songs recorded around the same time like many of Carti’s works. With “Die Lit” and by the allegedly AI-utilizing disappointment “MUSIC” in 2025, they start off promisingly but don’t keep a consistently interesting sound. This ends up misleading the listener into thinking they’re going to listen to one thing when they realize that the projects are something else entirely.
Despite his influential and prolific discography, Cartier God isn’t without his own detractors. The main barrier to Cartier God’s music for many people, whether that’s his collaborations or solo work, is his vocal inflections. Cartier God typically uses an autocrooning, off-kilter and out-of-tune vocal inflection that would understandably annoy some people or otherwise put them off. Furthermore, his beat selection may not be to others’ tastes for how experimental or messy they are. These are an acquired taste, admittedly, but will reap you many benefits if you stay and get familiar with them.
This attitude mirrors reactions to Carti’s repetitive lyricism in general, but also his baby voice on his earlier projects and ad-libs on “Whole Lotta Red.” This leads to comparatively less extreme but similarly polarizing reactions. Cartier God was an earlier example in the cloud rap scene showing how experimenting with your voice as well as your production could be beneficial for having a unique and groundbreaking sound.
The parallels don’t end there; Carti also uses terminology popularized by Cartier God. Believe it or not, Cartier God calls himself the inventor of “Water Lingo,” repurposing words like “drip” and “splash” to mean something akin to “fashion” or “style” and “impact” respectively back in the early 2010s. Not only Carti, but so many other contemporary rappers owe respect to Cartier God’s innovations from the Ocean Gang era sonically and linguistically for their own rapping lexicon.
In a battle of substance and what will stand the test of time, both are incredibly important historically for differing reasons, but Cartier God has a lot more going. Cartier God’s flourishing discography, grown in roughly the same amount of same as Carti’s entire career, proves that he’s a daring experimental musician who breathes music. Carti, on the other hand, didn’t invent his sounds but rather amplified them from other artists. If an artist creates original and fresh art and is passionate about the quality of their craft, Cartier God fits that definition better as a musical vampire trendsetter.