Jenn Carter is one of the most visible faces of the new Brooklyn wave, but her rise did not happen the way people think. While 41 exploded across the internet with viral records like “Notti Bop,” Carter says the group always believed they were bigger than the drill moment that first introduced them to the world. Now, as the collective prepares to release its long-awaited debut album Area 41, Carter is reflecting on the journey from neighborhood notoriety to national recognition.
In this candid sit-down with SlopsShotYa at WonWorld Studios, Carter breaks down how 41 built their chemistry long before rap, why early hits like “Deuce” and “Bent” were made almost accidentally, and how the group deliberately pivoted away from the controversy that initially surrounded their rise. The Brooklyn rapper also explains why she prefers making party records over diss tracks, why female listeners are driving modern Hip-Hop streams, and how experimenting with Jersey club rhythms helped 41 push drill into new territory.
Along the way, Carter opens up about personal loss, the grind behind viral success, and the mindset that keeps her focused as 41 enters its most important chapter yet.
AllHipHop: Best ad-lib, also the best shape-up. I got a haircut, I ain’t gonna lie. Shout your barber out.
Jenn Carter: Yo, I ain’t gonna lie. Shout out Drake. Drake be cutting up, you know, for me. That’s my current barber right now.
AllHipHop: That’s funny. How you been?
Jenn Carter: I’ve been good. Life extremely good. Album dropping soon.
AllHipHop: I’m looking forward to it.
Jenn Carter: Nah, we doing a group album. 41 finally dropping a debut album. I can’t wait. I ain’t gonna lie. Fans been waiting on it.
AllHipHop: What’s different now that y’all in album mode? What’s the difference from what you was doing before?
Jenn Carter: I feel like now I really been way more locked in in the studio, not just rapping. I realized being an artist and perfecting your craft is a lot more than just rapping on a beat. It comes with mixing and mastering, clearances of samples, and all that. We been back and forth with the label, but we getting it done. I ain’t gonna lie. We got hits for them already.
AllHipHop: I’m proud, because I’m from Brooklyn myself. But I’m older, so my first 41 joint was “Notti Bop.” Then I found out y’all had songs way before that. But “Notti Bop” hit the algorithm, and y’all didn’t just stay there. Y’all re-energized drill, then you integrated Jersey club into it. Did y’all know you could make hits outside of just Brooklyn drill?
Jenn Carter: One thing about all of us collectively, me, TaTa, Kyle Rich, Dee Billz, J Gelato, all of 41, even from the beginning, we all knew we could rap. Drill was just popping at the time. Around the time of Kay Flock went to jail, Rest in Peace Pop Smoke, those was really the two that had drill popping about to go mainstream. So we knew we could rap, but we used drill to rap about what was going on in our environment, as a way to speak our side of the story.
AllHipHop: So you knew from rip, like, we artists first.
Jenn Carter: That’s a fact. We knew from jump it wasn’t only gonna be drill. We wasn’t only drill artists. We knew we was artists from the beginning. Even TaTa, he wasn’t a drill artist. He started with autotune. He was like, “Yo bro, I’m not drill rapping. Autotune is my thing.” Then he got around us and the music is energetic. He really the energy.
AllHipHop: Now y’all got the plaques to back it up.
Jenn Carter: Now we got gold plaques, platinum plaques. I ain’t gonna lie. BET nominated. Everything worked out.
AllHipHop: Which song surprised you the most, like, “I can’t believe this one went”?
Jenn Carter: Early on, “Deuce.” Because at the time I wasn’t used to going first on songs. KR was really the one that invited me to the studio. I was really messing with instruments before stepping in the booth. I used to play piano. I used to play trumpet. I always loved music, producing music in some way, but I never thought it would be rapping.
AllHipHop: So when “Deuce” blew up?
Jenn Carter: I was like, damn. We went in the booth and made that in like 15, 30 minutes. It was really like a freestyle. I wasn’t expecting it to go as crazy as it did.
AllHipHop: Wait. That was a freestyle?
Jenn Carter: Yeah. First time I just didn’t write a verse. I went in. I was in a store with little guys up there. I had no water. That’s what was on my mind. It just went like the most New York s##t ever.
AllHipHop: That song is also when the call part went viral. That’s when everybody was like, “Okay, Jenn Carter…” Now, when did you recalibrate and say, “We gotta take the hit-making part serious”? Because you one of the few I can play in a club, I can play you at a block party, I can play “Bent,” “Deuce,” “Presidential” around the ladies. I don’t gotta get looked at crazy.
Jenn Carter: A lot of people don’t know this, but it was early. Around “Notti Bop.” “Notti Bop” dropped and we didn’t think it would go so crazy. We was just popping in the hood. When that transpired, we realized like, this s##t not worth it. That’s not something we wanted to be known for. So we started switching it up early. We wanted to show people we don’t gotta do that to go viral. That’s where “Bent,” “Deuce,” all the party records came in, because we really do just be happy in the studio. Chemistry be there. You live and you learn.
AllHipHop: That’s maturity and accountability. Now, is the dissing over?
Jenn Carter: For me, I really be saying no to it. I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, that s##t is so wack. Throwing people names in songs, I was never comfortable with that because I know my potential. I know how far a song can go. Nobody want to hear that all day. People want to hear a bop for real. If you going to drop a diss, make it a bop. But me personally, I’d rather go the female way, the party way, make the hits. Even if it’s a happy song, a sad song, everything don’t gotta be surrounded by something negative all the time.
AllHipHop: You think your demographic feels that too?
Jenn Carter: Females period push a lot of music. A lot of females don’t want to hear s##t they don’t even understand half the time. They want to hear getting Chanel bags, being pretty, being uplifted. That really carry streams nowadays. Dissing can only go so far.
AllHipHop: Are we expecting solo projects from 41?
Jenn Carter: Definitely solo projects coming, but we 100% focused on the debut album. All for one, one for all. Bigger we are, bigger each of us will be. We might as well give the fans what they asking for. They been asking for unreleased for the longest. We about to feed them unreleased we been holding.
AllHipHop: What’s the title?
Jenn Carter: Area 41. I ain’t gonna lie. Dropping real soon. Don’t say too much.
AllHipHop: How did the group come about?
Jenn Carter: Real early, before the music. I knew KR before the music. I knew Dills before the music. I knew Gelato before the music. TaTa and Dbo knew each other. That brought KR to bring TaTa along. We was hanging during quarantine pandemic. Everybody out of school. I was in my junior year. Didn’t have a graduation. I was like, damn, what do I do? I was trying to make money. I didn’t want to work a nine-to-five. Nothing wrong with nine-to-five. But I always wanted to be my own boss. Rapping was the way. It was a hobby, then that s##t went.
AllHipHop: Did you expect it to click that quickly?
Jenn Carter: Anybody from Brooklyn, my generation know before 41 we was popular on Facebook. We didn’t rap, didn’t do nothing, we just get a thousand likes on a picture. We used that to our advantage. We transferred to Instagram, we were seen as real rappers. It was a different lifestyle on Instagram. Everything just clicked. The aesthetic of us being a group drew people in more. And I’m glad it’s all for one, one for all to this day.
AllHipHop: Ten years since I discovered Brooklyn drill. Do you think drill is dying?
Jenn Carter: I don’t think drill is a dying genre. People grow out of drill. Drill rappers get older and be like, “This s##t wack.” But unfortunately in environments, there’s still Black-on-Black crime, and drill is the way for people to express that. It may not be as big as it was, but it’s not over. New people creating different types of drill every day. And drill isn’t always dissing. Cash Cobain expanded it to the sexy drill. Another example of how drill could never die.
AllHipHop: But I’m talking about the sound. Y’all implemented the Jersey club sound and it extended the life. Whose idea was that?
Jenn Carter: Me and K was really locked in the studio early. When we hear a beat we know is a hit, we give each other that look. That’s what happened with “Deuce,” “Bent.” Once we hit a beat and we don’t stop dancing for five minutes before rapping, that’s how we know it’s made for parties. “Bent,” we probably danced around for 20 minutes. Shout out to MC Vert with the slow down. It was a new type of Jersey drill, the slow down with the Brooklyn drill.
AllHipHop: “Presidential” looked like y’all knew it was gonna go.
Jenn Carter: Shout out Black Boy Max. He pulled up that beat one day. I went in first again. I did it in like probably 30 seconds. We went back to back to back. Clips went crazy everywhere. The suits everywhere.
AllHipHop: How has life changed since it took off?
Jenn Carter: Biggest change is the money. But my journey helped me overcome so much I was dealing with in my past. It brought me closure. Made me feel like all this s##t wasn’t for no reason. Losing my pops in quarantine broke me. This was before I started rapping. I started rapping the same year and it took off. I live day by day thanking God, realizing I’m blessed. It could always be worse. A lot of people would want to be in my position. That’s what gets me through every single day.
AllHipHop: Hate come with it too.
Jenn Carter: People not gonna understand you. That’s okay. More people finding out about you. My fans resonate because they watch my streams, they understand the lore in my songs. There’s stories behind it.
AllHipHop: You got a name for your fanbase?
Jenn Carter: Not yet. They was trying to go with Turtle Tinkers, but I ain’t jacking. They trying to say my Wi-Fi was bad on stream. I ain’t jacking. But I went with it for right now though. My Twitch profile picture is a turtle with my head photoshopped on it.
AllHipHop: How serious you taking streaming?
Jenn Carter: I tried. But when you still on the grind, the hunger is elsewhere. I can’t devote two to four hours every day. Sometimes I come home tired, been out all day, come home from a show. I still get on for an hour if I got time. But consistent every day, that’s not me right now. I do love streaming though, because I be myself.
AllHipHop: Do you think artists have to stream to be successful now?
Jenn Carter: No. Streaming not for everybody. Some people got the commitment and talent, but don’t got the personality. Some got the personality, don’t got the commitment. You don’t have to stream. It’s two separate categories, two different lifestyles.
AllHipHop: The no-edit part is crazy to me. Anything can happen.
Jenn Carter: Streaming is real life. Smoke alarm beeping, I need to change the batteries, little s##t. But it’s authentic. Clippers gonna do it for you. They gonna put the worst caption and do that for you.
AllHipHop: Who next up? Because y’all not “next,” y’all here.
Jenn Carter: How can I not say Zeddy Will? He been on a run. Run hasn’t finished. When he drop the project, that’s when people gonna know what’s up. Also DTB Does. I listen to bro a lot. I like people because I understand their music better. Real s##t to me.
AllHipHop: We gotta do this. Top five dead or alive.
Jenn Carter: Pop Smoke. PnB Rock. I gotta put Drake up there. Tupac. 50 Cent.
AllHipHop: Honorable mention, female.
Jenn Carter: Nicki Minaj. Nicki is still the goat. Nothing she says gonna f##k up the fact that the work is out there.
AllHipHop: Area 41. When is it dropping?
Jenn Carter: Soon. Coming soon. This time for real. April. The fourth month. That’s the most I’m saying.
