Seven days out from the album deadline, the first thing Ken Carson did was walk into the studio, fire up the PlayStation 5, munch on a McDonald's burger, and knock out a few rounds of EA Sports FC 26. Tucked away in Atlanta's Midtown, the unassuming Violet Isle Studios houses a 1980s SSL 4056G mixing console in the control room, while the 525-square-foot room next door has a black grand piano and an air mattress piled with T-shirts and a pair of red-and-white Rick Owens sneakers — neither the piano nor the mattress has seen much action lately. This is Ken Carson's territory, where he usually rolls in around evening and works through until dawn.
The 26-year-old is now Opium's most prolific artist and one of the headliners for ComplexCon 2026. He's juggling multiple projects at once: the follow-up to "Xperiment," his new album "Cartunez," is about to drop; he's got a tour launching this fall; he's sharing the ComplexCon stage with label boss Playboi Carti; and he's also working on a joint album with labelmate Destroy Lonely that's roughly 50% done, slated for an October 30 release. On top of that, he just dropped a WWE collab collection, with T-shirts featuring wrestling legends he grew up watching — Stone Cold Steve Austin, Undertaker, Rhea Ripley, John Cena, and Danhausen.
Talking about a recent trip to Utah to record with YoungBoy Never Broke Again, he described heavy snowfall and himself wearing nothing but a zip-up jacket, riding along with YoungBoy in an off-road vehicle with the same oversized tires as the ones Kanye West and Carti drive, tearing through the snow. "We recorded a lot of songs," he said, without giving an exact number. "When two artists get together, they're bound to pull each other's style in a new direction." He said he's recording every single day, but only about 7% of what he makes actually reaches fans. "Sometimes putting a song out just drains your energy."
