Lee Arthur Carter, known professionally by his stage nameViper, is an American rapper and producer. Viper has been producing music since childhood, but he received widespread attention online for his 2008 album, You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack. The prolific nature of his work, together with his commitment to self-production, has garnered him a cult following as an outsider artist, with comparisons drawn to rapper Lil B and musician Wesley Willis.
Biography
Early life
Viper was born in El Dorado, Arkansas. He began playing the piano at the age of five. At the age of six, he relocated to the Hiram Clarke neighborhood of Houston, Texas and started rapping at the age of nine. In 1997, he was an actor in the film Fifth Ward, directed by his brother, Greg Carter.
Music career
While Viper reportedly started rapping as a child, his first musical appearance was on the soundtrack for Fifth Ward, under the name "J-Ride." Originally under the artist nameLee Dogg, Viper released his first album, Lee Dogg on October 7, 2003, which would later be renamed Hustlin' Thick. The album was created mostly in collaboration with various artists signed to local music labelDope House Records at the time, who Viper thanks multiple times in the liner notes. Viper planned to continue releasing albums under the Lee Dogg name and had numerous plans for collaborations, but for unknown reasons this never happened, and he retroactively changed both the name of his album to Hustlin' Thick and his artist name to Viper. Viper continued to release mixtapes regularly throughout the early 2000s under his Rhyme Time Records label through the CD Baby website, becoming one of the first cloud rap artists. Throughout this period he showed frustration at his obscurity and limited exposure, as detailed on one of his early songs "9900 Haters On The Wall", where he claimed out of ten thousand people who heard his albums on the site, only a hundred had bought them. His obscurity would continue until early 2013, when the title track of his album You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack, released in 2008, was posted onto YouTube. Since then it has garnered over three million views, and news outlets started reporting on him shortly after. You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack is by far Viper's most popular album. University of Notre Dame newspaper The Observer noted that the album became an "internet meme due to its shockingly upfront title and unique album cover". Despite the heavily independent and lo-fi nature of the album, it received positive coverage in the music press. Sputnik Music wrote that the album fuses "a nostalgic and ethereal blend of cloud rap and vaporwave". The Chicago Reader wrote that the album is "outsider-artist genius. People on the Internet are initially drawn to Viper because of his blatant disregard for grammar, outrageously violent and drugcentric lyrics, and how sonically bizarre he is in general." Since then, Viper has remained active, releasing almost an album per day on average in 2014, often consisting of recycled or chopped and screwed material, while making his music available on Spotify and iTunes and giving interviews to the local music press. As of 2020, he has released well over 1,000 albums, although only approximately 15 or so consist of solely original material.
Personal life
Carter has had two children with his ex-wife and another two with his second ex-wife. He believes he is the second Christ, and refers to himself as "Black Jesus" as well as being a devout Christian. In June 2016, Carter suffered pneumonia as a result of him wearing a contraption he calls "" or THOD which is in fact, small women's body wraps he wears constantly in order to "make small".
Style
Viper is prolific, having released 347 albums in the year 2014 alone. His low-budget, DIY aesthetic is present not only in his music but also its accompanying videos and album art, which frequently consist of simple self-portraits, clip art and his name and the album title superimposed in plain text. Musically, he is recognized for his deep voice, occasional use of autotune, and slowed-down, low-fidelity and glitchy and ethereal production typical of cloud rap or the chopped and screwed subgenre native to Viper's Houston scene.
Discography
During his career, Viper has released over 1000 albums. However, most of these just have previous songs that have been chopped and screwed, slowed down, or simply recycled and put under different names. Therefore, only a partial part of his discography has been listed below. Primary original Viper albums are marked in bold.
