On October 17th, 2023, up-and-coming rapper Ken Carson released his long-awaited album, A Great Chaos. Fans say this album lives up to all of the hype, and I fully agree, with Carson using his well-known sound of distorted 808 bass and a synthetic melody for all of his beats.
Over the last year, Carson gave snippets of some of the songs to fans, which got everyone excited. With these snippets, the fans remastered them and made them into full songs, which gave people something to look forward to. I thought that some of the remasters were a little out of place and didn’t sound like a song Ken Carson would make. Thankfully, when the actual album was released, most songs were better than anticipated.
The album opens with “Green Room,” which is an upbeat song with an iconic synthetic beat. The lyrics mention how far he’s come with his music career and how successful he’s become in the last year. In interviews that he had with Genius, he mentions that the app TikTok is a huge reason for his popularity, with his hit song “Yale” becoming a viral sound on the app. He is also thankful for artists like Playboi Carti and Lil Tecca because they featured him in multiple hits, which put his name on the radar.
Immediately after the intro of the album, rap fans see something new that hasn’t been used much in the scene before. Instead of letting the beat play out at the beginning of the song “Jennifer’s Body,” the second track, all the music completely cuts and then comes back in after four beats. This process repeats itself for the first fifteen seconds of the song, then continues into the upbeat song, in which Carson describes how his dream girl would be and how she would stand up for him.
A Great Chaos is blended with a few happier songs and then some more of the “hype up” songs that fans are accustomed to hearing, which are the reason they adore Ken Carson. These songs are something you would listen to while jumping around at one of his concerts, or something you would listen to to get ready for a big game.
Songs that fit in this category in the album are “Hardcore” and the biggest hit on the album so far, “Fighting My Demons.” This song was one of the tracks that he gave a preview of, and it was one of the most anticipated tracks. It features a distorted bass, a beat to get everyone pumped up, and even a melody change near the end. Carson performed this song for the first time at his album release concert in Brooklyn, NY, and this track brought out how much the fans appreciate him as an artist in the rap scene.
This album really is what fans were waiting for and was a great tracklist overall. I would give it four out of five stars because it features all of his different types of music while still keeping the iconic sound, but some of the songs in this album could be considered fillers, with a lot more attention going to the bigger hits.