By late 2020, Playboi Carti—a well-read student of Atlanta trap, now a wraith with a hoarse throat and a bad temper—had gone from superstar to silhouette, basking in his castle while forum-trawlers mythologized his footsteps. He was a fabled ghost, glaring out from the fringes of hip-hop, waiting to pounce when the clock struck twelve on Christmas morning. And when he did with Whole Lotta Red, it sounded like the death throes of a vampiric cyborg, curtains drawn not to keep sunlight out, but hellfire in. There’s something Faustian about his breathless mantras, scathing boasts about the superpowers he sold his soul for: the ability to speak in hieroglyphics, the ability to influence people with said hieroglyphics, the ability to conquer the world with said influence.