Playboi Carti Is Topping Spotify’s US Viral 50 Chart With an Unreleased Song
Written by SOURCE on May 22, 2019
Playboi Carti fans are an energetic bunch, matching the rapper’s hyper-geeked style of rapping with the enthusiasm with which they gobble up his new music. Case in point: Carti is currently topping a Spotify chart with a song he hasn’t even released.
Playboi Carti’s “Kid Cudi” has kicked around the internet since March and an unsanctioned upload of the still unreleased track (actually a Young Nudy and Pi’erre Bourne song called “Pissy Pamper”) is currently sitting at No. 1 on the streaming giant’s US Viral 50 chart.
The track was uploaded by an artist named Lil Kambo who uses the account to share unofficial songs that fans have trouble finding.
“I first made my Spotify account to post songs that aren’t already on Spotify,” Kambo explained to Genius. “Before the song came out there was a snippet on YouTube and it sounded like it would be a hit if it was released. A couple weeks later the song got leaked and I posted it to my channel not thinking about how big it would get. I posted it on the Playboi Carti reddit to help the fans find the song.”
Kambo said that the song picked up steam thanks to memes and a Carti performance at Rolling Loud.
The pitch-shifted version of the song (“Kid Carti” on Spotify) has been streamed over 2 million times. As for why the song hasn’t been officially shared yet, Genius provides the possible explanation that Bourne and Co. might be working to clear the sample of Mai Yamane’s “Tasogare.”
