Opium (Record Label)

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Part of a series on Playboi Carti. [View Related Entries]

About

Opium is a rap and hip-hop record label started by rapper Playboi Carti in 2019. In the early 2020s, Opium came to define a genre of dark, evil and vampire-inspired rap music, pioneered by Carti and others signed by him like Ken Carson and Destroy Lonely. Opium fashion became a topic of internet discourse online, borrowing aesthetics from punk rock and designers like Rick Owens, centering on all-black outfits with exaggerated shapes and accents, styled by fashion influencer Burberry Erry. Memes about Opium artists, music and fashion trended across social media in the early 2020s, trending on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter / X and Reddit, among other websites.

History

The Opium record label was launched by Playboi Carti in late 2019,^[1]^[2]^[10] coinciding with an album drop called Whole Lotta Opium on Apple Music in December 2019,^[3]^[4] under a new pseudonym of Carti's named Opium Carti.

Carti first signed artist Ken Carson, formerly Ken Car$on, in 2019.^[10] However, Carson didn't release his first full project until 2021, releasing his debut EP Teen X.^[5] The hit song on the album was "Yale" which was uploaded as a music video to YouTube^[6] a year prior in 2020 (shown below).

Later in 2021, Opium signed the rap collective Homixide Gang.^[7] In 2022, Opium debuted new inductee Destroy Lonely with his debut single "NOSTYLIST."^[8] The song's official music video was uploaded to YouTube^[9] on August 12th, 2022, gaining over 9.9 million views in one year (shown below).

Reception

Critical reception of Ken Carson's music is evident in a critique of his 2021 album Project X published by Pitchfork,^[10] in which the writer, Mano Sundaresan, wrote:

It feels like the industry has been using the sound Carti popularized as a kind of cheat code for creating a viral moment… In theory, Atlanta rapper Ken Car$on has a more natural connection to this trend than his peers… Unlike Carti, who yelps and screams all over WLR, Car$on is comparatively chill… But as the album progresses, it becomes obvious when Car$on’s cartoonish cool shrouds lazy songwriting…

In a similar Pitchfork^[11] critique for Carson's 2022 album X, writer Alphonse Pierre wrote:

"Ken Car$on networked his way from military school expulsion to dilettante hanging around two of his city’s essential beatmakers of the last decade (TM88 and Southside) to the first signee of Playboi Carti’s Opium label, all while maintaining an apathetic relationship with music."

The albums earned a 6.0 out of 10 and a 4.7 out of 10, respectively. In similar reviews of Destroy Lonely's work, Pitchfork^[12] writer Kieran Press-Reynolds rated his 2023 album If Looks Could Kill a 5.7 out of 10, starting the piece with, "Ask any 16-year-old who uses their mom’s credit card to buy Rick Owens what they’ve been listening to lately, and they’ll tell you the same thing: Destroy Lonely is the future."

In contrast, YouTuber^[18] UVXCX uploaded a roughly 11-minute-long video called "OPIUM: The Label That Changed Everything" on April 16th, 2023, which gave an overall positive review of Opium and its impact on music and popular culture. Over the course of six months, the video gained roughly 170,000 views and 9,500 likes (shown below).

Other creators, like YouTuber^[19] Bobbalam, posted similar documentary-style videos praising Opium later in 2023.

Fandom

Opium members and the Opium clothing brand have received a large fandom represented in memes, internet trends and viral discourse. For instance, on TikTok, usage of the phrase "This is so Opium" has gone viral, evident in a TikTok^[13] video posted by @futurist__ on March 5th, 2023, which received roughly 1.5 million plays and 190,000 likes in seven months (shown below).

The aforementioned video and its catchphrase are inspired by the precursor phrase This Is So Destroy Lonely Core and the If Looks Could Kill Baby I’m The Fashion Demon TikTok trend which both surfaced in 2022.

Viral discourse and posts about Opium music and aesthetics have also surfaced on X / Twitter, evident in a post shared by X^[14] user @60404 on June 28th, 2023, which said, "the spiderman cast in 2002 so opium," gaining over 98,000 likes in four months (shown below, left). Similarly, on July 7th, 2023, the Instagram^[15] page @00piumunderground humorously compared The Beatles to the members of Opium, gaining roughly 17,600 likes in three months (shown below, right).

Additionally, discourse about Opium has surfaced on Reddit, specifically in the /r/Opium^[16] subreddit and /r/playboicarti^[17] subreddit.

Erosion Bird / Opium Bird

Erosion Bird, originally known as Opium Bird, is the name given to an AI-generated picture of a large bird-like creature that is depicted on a snow-covered mountain. The bird, being larger than humans, became popularized on TikTok in September 2023 (similar to fellow fake cryptid Siren Head) as users on the platform created more artificial intelligence art featuring it. Users began calling it Opium Bird in reference to the record label Opium because its fur coat resembled the fashion aesthetic of the rappers signed to the label. Many of the videos featuring Erosion Bird used the caption Calm Luh Fit.