A Great Chaos

The album's lead single, "I Need U", was first previewed in December 2022[5] and released on February 14, 2023, coinciding with Valentine's Day.[3] On June 2, Carson officially announced the project's title and an initial release date of July 17.[6] The album's tracklist was shared on June 25, revealing that it would consist of 14 tracks and feature multiple guest artists.[6] A second single, "It's Over", was teased but never released, and the album ultimately missed its original release date for reasons outside of Carson's control.[6]

Carson tweeted a pre-save link for the album on October 6, indicating that the project would now be released on October 13 with an updated tracklist of 18 songs;[7] three days later, nearly the entire album leaked online after several tracks were shared on a Discord server.[8] On October 12, an album launch party was held at the Silo dance club in Brooklyn to commemorate the project's release. Carson performed tracks "Singapore" and "Paranoid" alongside his Opium labelmate, Destroy Lonely, before bringing out fellow rapper and the aforementioned label's founder, Playboi Carti, to perform songs from the latter's latest album, Whole Lotta Red (2020), and "Fe!n" from Travis Scott's fourth studio album Utopia (2023).[9]

The album's cover art, which was designed by Nick Spiders and revealed on October 6, 2023,[7] depicts a low-quality close-up shot of Carson wearing a black t-shirt, diamond chains, and an earring as he stands smiling in front of a gray backdrop.[10]

Mano Sundaresan of Pitchfork described A Great Chaos as "a creative breakthrough, flipping the script on Atlanta rap production" as "within the churn of these outrageous beats, Ken sounds alive, funneling his hedonistic tendencies into joyously unholy music".[11] Vibe's Preezy Brown called the album "some of [Carson's] best work yet", highlighting solo tracks "Fighting My Demons", "Hardcore", "Overtime", "Vampire Hour", and "Nightcore" as standouts that showcased the rapper "hitting on all cylinders".[12]

Eric Young of Creative Culture wrote that, while the album boasted "better production, and a more convincing performance" than that of Carson's previous full-length outing, X, he found certain songs "monotonous" to listen to and knocked the rapper's vocal delivery as being largely "uninteresting". Still, he labeled "Jennifer's Body" "a raging masterpiece of a song" and felt that the project offered "a thrilling musical experience" despite its flaws.[13]

A Great Chaos debuted at number 11 the US Billboard 200, earning 49,000 album-equivalent units, becoming Carson's first US top 20 album. The album also accumulated a total of 60.34 million on-demand streams for its tracks, in the week ending October 20, 2023.

Notes

• "It's Over" contains a sample of "Freestyle 3", written by Kenyatta Lee Frazier Jr. and Bart van Hoewijk, as performed by Ken Carson.
• "Pots" is an acronym for "Pouring Out the Syrup".