The album arrived just a week before the tragic news of MF DOOM's passing. Fans, including many artists that DOOM influenced, shared an outpouring amount of tributes to the late rapper. Carti was among those, which led a few people to debate whether the Atlanta rapper was actually a fan of the masked villain. In a recent interview with Inked Magazine, the rapper explained that his shout-out to DOOM on "Stop Breathing" needed to be broken down to his engineer.
"I had to tell my boy, my best friend, my engineer. He’s the person recording the song, and he didn’t know who MF DOOM was,” Carti said. “I’m like, you don’t know MF DOOM? You don’t know who this dude is? I had to play songs for him, because he didn’t know who he inspired. The mask! I’m anonymous myself, but he’s king of that."
He acknowledged that their own musical styles are incredibly different but their intent when it came to music and their own public appearance aligned with each other. "I don’t have to sound like MF DOOM to be inspired by him,” he added. “Nobody can keep a leash on him. Nobody can keep a leash on me. That’s definitely his impact. Even if I didn’t know that at first, I had to look up and think about this shit right here—it had already been done.”