Experimental musician Aaron Cartier rode up to the game on more than one horse. Debuting with the Dylan Brady-hosted The Cartier, the multi-talented musician spent the late 2010s exploring different avenues of the musical spectrum, ranging from mellow singer/songwriter material to industrial hip-hop at a moment's notice. In 2019, Cartier embarked on a mammoth ten-mixtape run, switching from IDM to parodic comedy-rap, with all of them demonstrating the musician's immense versatility. Coming up in St. Louis, Missouri, rapper/producer Aaron Cartier caught the public's attention with his bold take on contemporary rap sonics: debut singles "PIANOMAN" and "BALLIN," the latter produced by Dylan Brady, offered brash renditions of the mid-2010s trap sound. Refusing to be labeled as just another rapper, Cartier moved into 2016 with impressive production work on Kevin Bedford's TONES, and flexed his singing talents on the R&B-laced "They Know." By September, the musician had finished his debut mixtape, The Cartier: wryly titled after Lil Wayne's iconic tapes, Cartier's first set ranged from Toronto-esque R&B to Travis Scott-style melodic trap. Cartier continued to up his work ethic in 2017, releasing two EPs (AARON CARTIER DGAF and Songs) alongside sophomore mixtape AARON CARTIER BEST RAPPER. Each offered a drastically different perspective of the up-and-comer: DGAF enveloped Cartier's raps in blown-out distortion; Songs offered an acoustically driven singer/songwriter set, and BEST RAPPER comprised off-kilter versions of alternative rap styles. A set of ironic EPs, Stars & Stripes and Real Art, arrived the following year. It wasn't until 2019 that Cartier really pushed the envelope forward: Over the next 12 months, the rapper released ten full-length mixtapes. Many of these expounded on the explosive directions of Cartier's !!!!!!!!!!!, and Cartier Evil demonstrated his industrial hip-hop proficiencies. Habits > Goals offered a full project of Cartier's melodic trap, and Dakota built on the softer, acoustic talents showcased on Songs. On other mixtapes, Cartier turned his hand to a spectrum of new genres, including IDM (Dovelace, I USED TO BE A TIGER, THE BEAT), ambient (Harmony Theory), and radio-ready pop (Pop). The rapper even issued a parody album under the name C-SWAGGG, delivering a hilarious imitation of the decade's struggle rapper with tracks like "Hard in the Steak" and "I Got Swaggg." After a year of relative quiet, Cartier returned to the fore in 2021 with AARON CARTIER BEST DOG, a hyper-rap-driven 13th mixtape with extensive production work from Dylan Brady. ~ David Crone