How Playboi Carti Emerged from the Atlanta Underground

When he was a student at North Springs Charter High, Jordan Terrell Carter started going to house parties hosted by an older rapper he knew, a fixture on the Atlanta scene known as Key. Carter was already in the orbit of Awful Records, the lo-fi collective of self-described “weirdos” that would later sign him, and the crew would often make their way to Key’s parties, on Moreland Avenue in East Atlanta, which were as legendary for the stars they launched—it’s where Future filmed his “Trap Niggas” video—as for their chaos. Over time Carter began performing at the parties, and on one particularly rowdy New Year’s Eve, he got all three floors of guests going so hard that the house itself buckled. “We broke the fucking floor,” he recalls.

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