Lee A. Carter, professionally known by his stage name Viper, is an American rapper and producer.^[1] Viper has been producing music since childhood, but received widespread attention online for his 2008 album You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack. The prolific nature of Viper's work and his commitment to self-production have gained him a cult following as an outsider artist, with comparisons drawn to fellow rapper Lil B and musician Wesley Willis.^[2][3]

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.^[3][4]

While Viper reportedly started rapping as a child, his first musical appearance was on the soundtrack for Fifth Ward, under the name "J-Ride",^[5] for which he also acted.^[3][4]

Viper's first album, Hustlin' Thick was released in 2004, originally under the name Lee Dogg, but was retrospectively changed to Viper shortly after.^[6] Viper continued to release mixtapes regularly throughout the early 2000s under his Rhyme Time Records label through the CD Baby website,^[7] becoming one of the first cloud rap artists.^[8] 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.^[7]

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 two and a half million views,^[9] and news outlets started reporting on him shortly after.^[3][2][10] You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack is his most popular album, and the only one that has been released commercially on an indie record label. 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".^[11]

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".^[10] 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."^[2]

Since then, Viper has remained active, and has produced 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.^[1][11][12] As of 2019, he has released well over 1000 albums, although only approximately 15 or so consist of solely original material.

Carter has had three children with his ex-wife. He believes he is the second coming of Jesus Christ,^[13][14] as well as being a devout Christian. In June 2016, Carter suffered pneumonia^[15] as a result of him wearing a contraption he calls "Tha Horness of Death [sic]" or THOD which is in fact, small women's body wraps he wears constantly in order to "make small".^[16]

Viper is prolific, having released 347 albums in the year 2014 alone.^[12] 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.^[17]

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.^[3]

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.

Studio albums/mixtapes