Ken Carson Sets July 3 for xperiment, His Fifth Album, After Pulling a Surprise Onstage With Playboi Carti

Ken CarsonRage · Atlanta, GeorgiaArtist profile →

Ken Carson announced his next album the same week he crashed Playboi Carti’s headlining set. xperiment, his fifth studio album, arrives July 3 via Opium/Interscope, and the cover shows a figure from behind in a white room full of lab coats, an X marked on the back of the neck. A short teaser film went out with the news, Billboard reports.

The run-up has been busy. At Summer Smash in Chicago on Wednesday, Carson joined Playboi Carti onstage for Carti’s festival-closing set and they performed an unreleased song, “Cover My Ears.” The FADER says the album includes a collaboration with Carti and a production credit for 2hollis, who is a rising name in the same scene. Pitchfork notes that one of the songs previewed at Rolling Loud Orlando in May was reportedly 2hollis’ work. There is no tracklist or new single yet.

Read more2hollis’ Pirouette: Release Date, Tracklist, Cover Art and Everything We Know

Rolling Loud is the other piece of context. Billboard says Carson closed the Under Armour Stage there with his first Sunday-night headlining set, previewing music from xperiment with surprise guests including Lil Tecca, Destroy Lonely, Young Thug and Carti. Many people called it a career-defining performance, per Billboard. The FADER adds that Carson has been teasing the album on a secondary Instagram account, @xperimenting0_0.

The stakes are real. His last album, More Chaos, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 59,500 equivalent units, bumping label boss Carti from the top and giving Carson his first top 10. It also arrived with a surprise bonus track, “Off the Meter,” the first official collaboration between Carson, Carti and Destroy Lonely. xperiment is the first chance to see whether the Opium run was a peak or a plateau.

After this, the road. Carson headlines ComplexCon on Saturday, Oct. 3, in Los Angeles, as part of an Opium takeover of the festival’s 10th anniversary alongside Young Thug, Central Cee and 2hollis, according to The FADER. Before that, he has European festival dates at Roskilde in Denmark, Splash! in Germany, Openair Frauenfeld in Switzerland, Clout Festival in Poland and Frequency Festival in Austria. No tour has been announced, though his recent solo run, a short trip through Europe and the U.K., ended March 23.

xperimentKen CarsonListen on Apple Music

Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.