Welcome to Heat Check, a biweekly music column where AJC culture reporter DeAsia Paige explores the temperature of Georgia’s buzzing, expansive music scene. The column includes music news, trends and any Georgia-related music that DeAsia is listening to. If you’re a Georgia artist and have music you want to be considered for this column — or if you just want to talk music — feel free to send an email to deasia.paige@ajc.com
The power and persistence of Playboi Carti fans cannot be tamed.
Last week, they took to social media to air their frustration with the rapper not dropping his highly anticipated and highly teased album “I Am Music” this year. His legion of supporters were so mad that they planned a mass unfollowing of their beloved artist. A petition to ban him from music platforms for not delivering on his promise to drop an album this year has more than 7,000 signatures. The hashtag “I Am Liar” trended on X.
The news caps an interesting year for the mysterious Atlanta rapper. In January, he postponed his tour dates without an explanation or plans to reschedule. He also started 2024 by releasing a string of tracks that were only available via YouTube or social media. However, later in the year, he embarked on an impressive feature run with The Weeknd, Camila Cabello and Future and Metro Boomin.
Now, as the year comes to an end, Playboi Carti fans continue to wield their unrelenting spirit. This time, via the viral look-alike contest trend. On Sunday night, roughly 40 of his followers met at a lot in downtown Atlanta to celebrate his music and vote for the best Playboi Carti impersonator.
The event was hosted by Frictionn, an Atlanta-based media company. Penson “P” Dodgers, its founder, said he’d been waiting for Atlanta to get in on the action after the trend went viral this fall (the first one was held in Manhattan for Timothée Chalamet in October).
“I saw the trend going crazy in New York,” Dodgers said. “I saw the Timothée one and then the Drake one, and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s coming to Atlanta.’ I was really joking and put up a poll for our followers and was just like, ‘What should we do? Gunna, Young Thug, Carti or Future?’ Then it became a tie between Carti and Thug. We did the tiebreaker, and that’s what it was.”
Dodgers and his team organized the event in three days. They posted about it on social media and sent flyers in Edgewood, Peters Street and Little Five Points. Although the event didn’t draw as large of a crowd as the most popular look-alike competitions, there was no shortage of love for Playboi Carti. Fans danced as if they were in a mosh pit. They performed his songs better than a typical karaoke session.
Five contestants competed in rounds — including trivia, name that tune and finish that lyric — as the audience basked in the beats of Playboi Carti songs.
Kyjon Westbrook was one of them. The 20-year-old came dressed in a black durag, black shades and a black bulletproof vest over a white T-shirt. He said his appearance is constantly compared to Playboi Carti, so he felt the event was a natural fit.
“People have come up to me at Walmart with cameras and all that stuff, so that’s why I came. His music is alive. It does inspire a lot of people. I feel like he got a lot of inspiration from Young Thug, and he really put everybody on the map that’s especially from Atlanta.”
Credit: James I. Smith III
Credit: James I. Smith III
Abram Sullivan was the best-dressed of the night. A newer Playboi Carti fan, he got hooked on the rapper after listening to his 2020 album “Whole Lotta Red.” He said the album is a great example of the artist’s penchant for chaos, so he wanted to represent that in his attire. The south Atlanta native wore a black fur jacket, upside-down pants and a belt, which he bought at a rave. Sullivan capped his outfit with Rick Owens shoes.
“I felt like this was the first time in history I could put this exact thing on in this exact fashion, in this exact way, at this exact place,” the 18-year-old said.
Credit: James I. Smith III
Credit: James I. Smith III
But the night’s winner was 20-year-old Kleo Jackson, the only woman in the competition. She wore a black hoodie and matched Playboi Carti’s signature facial piercings. Although Jackson said she didn’t expect to win, she was excited to represent the rapper’s revered style.
She won $100, along with a booklet from popular designer Kaws and a jacket by Frictionn brand Industry Plant (an ode to Atlanta’s underground music scene).
“At first he was very underground, and then he wasn’t,” Jackson said about Playboi Carti’s impact. “I feel like his fashion sense is really good, though. He’s a very beautiful man, if we’re being completely honest, so it makes a lot of sense that he would be on a runway. I think that’s pretty cool. His outfits are slick, and that’s why I tried to drip like that today.”
After the event, Dodgers said he plans to create more content to honor Atlanta’s underground scene, an era in the city’s music history that he says deserves more love.
“When you think about that 2015-2016 SoundCloud era of Atlanta — like iLoveMakonnen, Father and Key — even though it was big in that moment, nobody really launched to be a superstar. (Playboi Carti) is like the superstar of that era. He’s the superstar of the emerging alternative Atlanta sound that makes it ‘Altlanta.’ I think that’s why he’s so important. You think Atlanta is trap and street, but he represents another version of Atlanta that is just gonna take it by their own and break the rules and disrupt the scene.”
Credit: James I. Smith III
Credit: James I. Smith III
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