Playboi Carti is slowly bringing an end to the drought he has subjected his followers to for years, as he has now shared some new music. And his peers are just as stoked as his fans.

On Friday (December 8), the Atlanta rapper shared a new song and music video through his alt account on Instagram after a lengthy absence that has built up immense anticipation for his next album.

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The visual for “Different Day” features him lip-syncing the lyrics to his heavily processed vocals — “I can’t trust my eyes/ How do I see?” — while standing by his car in a parking lot, holding a cigarette.

The upload immediately send the cyberspace into a frenzy, with the 27-year-old’s fellow musicians also expressing their support for his reemergence. Soon after the song went live, he took to his Instagram Stories to reshare shoutouts from Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Nav, Destroy Lonely and Ken Carson, among others.

The day prior, Carti took to social media to share three all-caps words: “I AM MUSIC.” At the same time, Pharrell Williams shared the same message on his socials while adding: “PREPARE.”

Though there is no immediate explanation as to what exactly “I AM MUSIC” is, there are some pretty valid theories to give it meaning.

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Pharrell’s “strategic consulting and creative collective” is called i am OTHER, whereas the Whole Lotta Red rapper told XXL in an interview last year that he plans on calling his upcoming album Music, “because that’s all it is at this point.”

Furthermore, DJ Akademiks has said that Carti’s album will be released in January 2024.

Travis Scott & Playboi Carti Surprise Fans With ‘FE!N’ Performance In L.A.
Travis Scott & Playboi Carti Surprise Fans With ‘FE!N’ Performance In L.A.

If “I AM MUSIC” is indeed new music from Playboi Carti, parts of it may have been recorded in a rather strange place. Last month, the Atlanta rapper told Numéro Berlin about his recording process.

He said: “I’ve been recording in Paris, I love Paris. Amazing. I was recording, in a cave, for like three months, and all the music that came out of that is just chaotic and crazy. Then, I’m in a glass house, somewhere in the hills, and the music there is just very good to the ears.

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“And then, I’m in Atlanta and the tensions are just high and the music is biting. So, it’s the little things like that that keep me going, because I’m just trying to talk to myself.”

Earlier this year, Carti rejigged his tour dates just a week prior to its scheduled start, postposing the United States leg to next year.

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In early September, his team announced that the Antagonist Tour, which was set to commence in Denver just a few days later, would now start its North American dates in mid-January 2024. As of this writing, the 31-date tour is scheduled to go through March 6.