Playboi Carti Artistfacts

September 13, 1995
Born Jordan Terrell Carter in Atlanta, Georgia, Playboi Carti is a rapper who made a name for himself in the underground scene before gaining mainstream attention with the release of his self-titled debut mixtape in 2017. The big singles were "Magnolia" and "Wokeuplikethis," which both made the Billboard Hot 100. His first full-length album, Die Lit, dropped the following year.
Carti initially used the moniker Sir Cartier when he started uploading music to SoundCloud in 2011. A couple years later, he renamed himself Playboi Carti and started branching out to other platforms. He connected with fellow Atlanta rapper Ethereal of the underground collective and record label Awful Records, which welcomed Carti to the roster. Ethereal took Carti under his wing and helped him fine-tune his sound and style.
Carti counts ASAP Rocky as one of his early mentors. The pair met at a house party in Austin, Texas, during the SXSW music festival in 2015 and became fast friends. Carti stuck around and settled in Houston for a while, a city he namechecks on the popular cut "Fetti."
Carti is known for experimenting with different sounds and vocal techniques, which makes him a standout guest performer on tracks among other hip-hop luminaries. He used his signature high-pitched "baby voice" to add a unique spin on contributions to Tyler, The Creator's "Earfquake" and Young Nudy's "Pissy Pamper." He implemented a coarser, deeper vocal on Kanye West's "Mr. Miyagi," Travis Scott's "Fein" and Camila Cabello's "I Luv It."
Before shifting his focus to music, Carti played on his high school's basketball team and dreamed of becoming an NBA star - but his pride got in the way. He never let anyone tell him what to do, not even his own mother, and found himself butting heads with the coach. Soon after, he quit the team and spent most of his time making music instead of shooting hoops.
While he was in high school, Carti worked at the fast-fashion retailer H&M, but the company didn't really influence his own unique fashion sense. He crafted his style out of thrift-store finds, which sometimes made him the butt of jokes among his classmates, who poked fun at his colored skinny jeans. After he became famous, he still sought out vintage garments but also modeled current designer trends by the likes of Louis Vuitton at Paris Fashion Week.
Carti has been romantically linked to several female rappers, including Blac Chyna, Rubi Rose, and Iggy Azalea. He and Azalea lived together from 2018 to 2019 and had a contentious split, which led to Carti refusing to sign the birth certificate for their son, Onyx, who was born in 2020.
Carti is no stranger to the wrong side of the law and has been arrested several times for domestic battery, drug possession, and reckless driving. In 2022, he was arrested on a felony assault charge for allegedly choking his pregnant girlfriend.
Some sources claim that Carti was born on September 13, 1996 (instead of 1995) - the same day Tupac Shakur died. The coincidence spawned an internet theory that suggests Carti is actually Tupac reincarnated.
Carti has a fascination with vampires, which started when he first saw the 1987 movie The Lost Boys, starring Corey Haim and Jason Patric as brothers who move to a California town being terrorized by a gang of bloodsuckers. Carti identified more with the hell-raising villains than the good guys. "I thought, damn, I wanna look like this," he told Complex in 2017. "That's me, that's Playboi Carti, a vampire on a dirt bike. Flying. Laughing and shit. The fangs, my grills. Long hair, dreads. Rock star shit. You know what I'm saying? It's fire."

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