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 typically 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 music and did a dumpster hearth cowl of System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!” That experiment in the end fell flat however the undertaking has its moments—the anguished scream firstly 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 type of wish to hear the total 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 latest sit-down with Advanced, 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 Track”—named after their robotic canine, after all—the observe opens with a clip from a decade-old Kitty interview the place she tries to brush the web critics off by saying, “If you set it on the web, somebody’s gonna hate it, like, it doesn’t matter what…Nevertheless it’s fantastic, 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 positively don’t care in any respect in case you 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 in case you hearken 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 containers 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 goal to convey you again to the times of “XO Tour Lif3.” Besides it’s not almost 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 Gasoline. “The Rush”—with an intro from the Nickelodeon boy band Massive Time Rush that sounds prefer it was bought on Cameo—matches the factors, too, as Uzi lifelessly runs by all their signature ad-libs (“Huh?”,“Yeah!”) like an outdated wrestler who pops up at SummerSlam to say their catchphrase.