Lil Uzi Vert’s Musical Punctiliousness Will Bolster The Pink Tape
2021 appears to be the year of artists trying new things. Rappers are stepping further out of their Hip-Hop comfort zones with Young Thug giving us folk-trap on Punk, Trippie Redd teaming up with Travis Barker to deliver Neon Shark vs. Pegasus serving as Trippie’s first full dive into Rock music, and Kanye West producing what is possibly the best-case scenario of a collision between Gospel & Hip-Hop on Donda. However, one of the marquee artists at the intersection between Hip-Hop and Rock has been noticeably silent, Lil Uzi Vert. However, with the recent release of his new track ‘Demon High,’ the Philadelphia rapper’s nearly year-long musical silence may shortly come to an end.
After a nearly three-year gap between LUV is Rage 2 released in late August 2017 and Eternal Atake released in early March 2020, Lil Uzi had decided to make up for his notable musical absence by giving fans three projects throughout 2020. In addition to Eternal Atake, Lil Uzi fans were treated to Lil Uzi Vert vs. The World 2, serving as the deluxe to Eternal Atake released the week after the original came out and Pluto x Baby Pluto, the collab album with Future.
Many factors played a part in the nearly three-year absence from music, mainly with Lil Uzi Vert beefing with his label Generation Now, going as far to reference trying to get out of his deal on Shabazz PBG’s ‘Shells,’ and “retiring” before dropping ‘Free Uzi,’ a loose single found on Soundcloud that could be interpreted as a diss track towards his label.
An additional aspect that lengthened his musical absence may go unnoticed by the casual fan, how much Lil Uzi Vert cares about the quality of his music. This is an easy takeaway if you’ve listened to any of his projects in full or catch clips of him discussing why he doesn’t meet the deadlines he sets for himself to release new music. The most recent example is Lil Uzi discussing with a fan why his upcoming project The Pink Tape wouldn’t be released before Halloween as he had claimed. “It drops next week and then it sells like s**t then I got to hear it from 100,000 people on the internet, ‘this sucks,’ so you got to let me take my time,” Uzi explained.
Because of the amount of music Lil Uzi had given fans in nine months last year, 56 tracks in total, I didn’t think we would get much of anything from Lil Uzi this year. However, Lil Uzi has been teasing The Pink Tape for months, with news about the new music coming from a variety of places including Lil Uzi Vert himself through Instagram Live.
However, the most interesting piece of news came from The Joe Budden Podcast in late February as the host, Joe Budden detailed what he heard about the new music Lil Uzi was working on at the time. “They heard some of the Lil Uzi project he’s been working on… they said it sounds like his version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller or Off The Wall,” Joe Budden claimed before being questioned by his co-hosts about what that means.
That’s a bold statement for anyone to make. How does someone begin to quantify what Lil Uzi’s version of Thriller or Off The Wall will be? Will it be Lil Uzi’s most productive album according to stats or is the comparison based on the style and sonics of the music?
Lil Uzi Vert’s new track ‘Demon High,’ allows us to conceptualize the idea of a Lil Uzi version of Thriller more clearly. As I’ve mentioned before Lil Uzi is no stranger to walking the line between Hip-Hop and Rock however, ‘Demon High’ may be completely off that line. While the track has elements of trap that come in during the second verse, it’s more of a Pop-Rock song than anything.
So what does this mean for The Pink Tape? Judging based on ‘Demon High’ Uzi’s next project could prove to be his most experimental by far, adding himself to the list of rappers who have decided to claim 2021 as the year to solidify their versatility. With Lil Uzi appearing on tracks like ‘BADASS’ by ZillaKami, ‘Teenage Dream 2’ by Kidd G, and ‘Die For a Man’ by Bebe Rexha this year, ‘Demon High’ could be the final nail in the coffin for hopes of more from Baby Pluto.
The Pink Tape could be the next step in Lil Uzi’s evolution from Hip-Hop Rockstar to Music Megastar. With ‘Demon High’ and a few previews in the form of snippets or Lil Uzi performances to go off of it’s safe to say fans are in store for something special, even though it may be something we’ve never heard from Lil Uzi before. With the Philadelphia rapper’s intense attention to detail in his music, Lil Uzi Vert deserves the benefit of the doubt as he takes his time to deliver music to his fans that will prove to be worth the wait.
