Playboi Carti’s HBA—released in March 2025 as part of his latest sonic onslaught—is a sprawling, introspective banger that oscillates between braggadocio and existential reflection. The track, laced with hypnotic repetition and jagged flows, feels like a fever dream where Carti wrestles with his demons, flaunts his victories, and carves out his legacy in real time. With its minimalist intro and verses that spiral into unexpected tangents, HBA showcases Carti at his most unfiltered—both a chaotic force of nature and a man peering into the abyss of his own making. Let’s unravel this track, letting its themes, lyrical quirks, and cultural echoes weave together organically.
The High Life as a Mantra
The intro—“You gotta get high like this / You gotta get high like me”—sets the stage with a mantra-like repetition that’s equal parts invitation and command. It’s not just about getting high in the literal sense (though drugs are a constant in Carti’s world); it’s a call to ascend to his plane of existence—untethered, untouchable, and unapologetic. The hypnotic loop mirrors the trance-like state he often evokes, a nod to the syrup-soaked haze of tracks like Magnolia or EVIL JORDAN. Here, though, it feels less celebratory and more insistent, as if he’s daring the listener to keep up with his relentless pace.
This obsession with elevation—physical, emotional, chemical—bleeds into Verse 1: “My eyes are open, I’m high / I can’t believe I can die / I just realized I was high.” There’s a rawness here, a flicker of mortality piercing through the bravado. Carti’s not invincible, and he knows it—the high is both his armor and his vulnerability. This juxtaposition of excess and awareness isn’t new for him, but in HBA, it’s delivered with a clarity that cuts deeper, hinting at the toll of living so fast.
Identity and Legacy in Flux
Carti’s journey as an artist surfaces vividly in lines like “I was seventeen on the mic / I’m tryna be Carti, not Mike.” The reference to Michael Jordan (or perhaps Mike Tyson) is a rejection of traditional icons—he’s not chasing anyone else’s blueprint; he’s forging his own. This ties into his broader ethos of defying categorization, a theme echoed across his discography and crystallized in Whole Lotta Red’s punk-trap fusion. “My whole career, they bite” doubles down on this, a jab at imitators who’ve trailed in his wake since he flipped the script on Atlanta rap.
The track’s title, HBA—likely a nod to Hood By Air, the avant-garde streetwear brand—reinforces this idea of Carti as a cultural shapeshifter. Like HBA’s boundary-pushing designs, he’s redefining what a rapper can be: “I’m a gigolo, ho, I bite” blends predatory swagger with a wink, while “Y’all niggas don’t know how to grow up, I been an OG since I was younger” positions him as both a young titan and a seasoned vet at 28. It’s a paradox he revels in, and the track thrives on that tension.
Lyrical Snapshots and Sonic Chaos
Carti’s wordplay in HBA is a mix of visceral flexes and surreal detours, delivered in his signature half-mumbled cadence. “Buffy the body, my bitch got body” riffs on Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a playful nod to his girl’s curves, while “She screech like a hyena when I get her body” adds a wild, animalistic edge—sex as a primal act, not a tender one. The repetition of “my bitch got body” feels almost hypnotic, locking into the beat’s relentless thrum, a testament to how Carti uses rhythm as much as lyrics to paint his world.
Verse 2 takes this further, spiraling into a globe-trotting frenzy: “Travel the world, huh, huh, schyeah, hol’ up / On tour with your girl / It’s not my world, it’s Mali world.” The mention of “Mali” could be a shoutout to a friend or a stand-in for his inner circle, but it’s the casual ownership—“she’s Mali’s girl”—that stings, a flex on anyone who thinks they can claim what’s his. Lines like “I jump out the Lam’ truck, she thought that I lost it / I jump out my Redeye, push out, then I go to Boston” are pure Carti—cars as status symbols, movement as identity, all wrapped in a cadence that feels like it’s tripping over itself in the best way.
The violence creeps in too: “Put him in a coffin, put him in a coffin” is blunt and repetitive, less a threat and more a mantra, while “All of my friends are dead, leave ‘em in the cold, put ‘em in the tundra” echoes the nihilism of XXXTentacion or even Juice WRLD, artists Carti’s crossed paths with stylistically. Yet he flips it with humor—“I go Ray Charles, I cannot see her, I make her fumble”—blinding himself to drama with a sly grin.
Cultural Threads and Atlanta Swagger
Carti’s Atlanta roots pulse through HBA, from the slang (“schyeah,” “hol’ up”) to the flexes tied to his hometown’s trap legacy. “I was just in Texas with Aaliyah, her pussy a jungle” name-drops a woman (perhaps a real fling or a symbolic stand-in) while evoking the wildness of Southern rap’s raw energy. The reference to “Double 0, yeah, the biggest ever” could hint at his Opium collective or a James Bond-level cool, but it’s the crossover line—“we just gettin’ ready for the crossover”—that ties it to his genre-bending ambition, a nod to basketball’s fluidity mirrored in his sound.
The materialism is there too, but it’s less ostentatious than in CRUSH or EVIL JORDAN. “Everything is awesome, FA, Fucking Awesome” shouts out the skate brand while doubling as a life motto, and “When you play this shit, wear a white tux, young nigga, like you in a formal” flips the script—his music isn’t just club fodder, it’s an event, a ritual. It’s Carti elevating his art to high culture, even as he stays rooted in the streets.
### A Glimpse of Fatherhood and Closure
The outro—“I was twenty-four when I had lil’ Onyx / Twenty-seven when I had Yves / Now I can finally sleep”—is a rare moment of stillness in Carti’s chaos. Naming his kids (Onyx, born around 2020, and Yves, born 2023) grounds the track in something real, a counterpoint to the high-flying escapism of the verses. “I let the sun lead me home / I let the moon set me up” feels almost poetic, a surrender to natural rhythms after years of fighting gravity. It’s not redemption, exactly—Carti’s too defiant for that—but it’s a pause, a breath, a hint that even he craves peace amid the storm.
A Tapestry of Contradictions
HBA doesn’t follow a straight line—it’s a collage of moods and moments, stitched together by Carti’s restless energy. The production, with its booming bass and eerie synths, mirrors this, shifting from aggressive drops to dreamy fades. His flow is jagged yet hypnotic, leaning on ad-libs (“schyeah,” “huh”) as much as lyrics to keep the vibe alive. It’s less a song and more a state of mind—high, wild, and unapologetic.
In the end, HBA is Playboi Carti wrestling with his own mythos: a gigolo biting back at biters, an OG outpacing the kids, a father finding sleep in a world that never stops spinning. It’s messy, magnetic, and unmistakably him—a testament to an artist who’s not just riding the wave but reshaping it, one high at a time.
