Lil Uzi Vert is having an id disaster. Their final yr or so has been spent simply spinning the wheel and praying they land on a jackpot. In 2023, there was Pink Tape, an album I generally mistake as a false reminiscence implant, like Arnold’s marriage in Whole Recall. However no, Uzi actually sang over Deftones-ish nu-metal and rapped on a flip of Shinsuke Nakamura’s WWE theme tune and did a dumpster hearth cowl of System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!” That experiment in the end fell flat however the challenge has its moments—the anguished scream initially of “Spin Once more”; the vulnerability of “Rehab.” There was additionally the long-teased mixtape Barter 16, Uzi’s purported all-out Younger Thug cosplay, which was supposedly scrapped (I nonetheless sort of wish to hear the complete factor). Now, with Everlasting Atake 2, Uzi’s subsequent spin lands on a retreat into their very own previous, and a complete lot of fan service.
In a current sit-down with Complicated, Uzi revealed the fan reactions they like their music to get: “50/50…I don’t like when everybody says it’s good. I really feel prefer it’s going to die out quick.” Then, on Everlasting Atake 2’s “Goddard Tune”—named after their robotic canine, in fact—the monitor opens with a clip from a decade-old Kitty interview the place she tries to brush the net critics off by saying, “If you place it on the web, somebody’s gonna hate it, like, it doesn’t matter what…However it’s superb, like, I get to have enjoyable…So I don’t care, they’re on the web, doesn’t matter.” Uzi’s message appears to be: They undoubtedly don’t care in any respect if you happen to hate EA2. Truly, you’re supposed to hate it. This appears to be their self-defense mode after Pink Tape was shit on even by the diehards of their subreddit, as a result of if you happen to take heed to EA2 it looks as if the aim isn’t for the album to be divisive and even beloved—only for it to not be hated.
All of the bins are checked. Field 1: For the followers extremely nostalgic for the moody melodies of the LUV Is Rage sequence. On the intro “We Good,” which properly interpolates a pattern of Alvvays’ “Very On-line Man,” Uzi’s hybrid of pop-punk shrieks and zigzagging flows intention to carry you again to the times of “XO Tour Lif3.” Besides it’s not practically as heartfelt as their older songs, which managed to be melancholic and euphoric on the identical time. It feels copy and pasted from that period, solely now they’re rapping about Galaxy Fuel. “The Rush”—with an intro from the Nickelodeon boy band Huge Time Rush that sounds prefer it was bought on Cameo—matches the standards, too, as Uzi lifelessly runs by means of all their signature ad-libs (“Huh?”,“Yeah!”) like an previous wrestler who pops up at SummerSlam to say their catchphrase.
