Oh, Lil Uzi Vert—heavy is the head that wears the $24 million diamond. When the Philly rapper unleashed their crowning achievement Eternal Atake in March 2020 after years of leaks and label purgatory, it seemed like everything was finally falling into place. What actually followed was a global health emergency. By the time the world opened back up, Uzi had entered the least-inspired period of their career. 2023’s perplexing Pink Tape and the next year’s shell-of-its-predecessor Eternal Atake 2 fulfilled their plagued Atlantic contract and sounded like obligations. Gone were the trap pyrotechnics and six-minute screeds about Vetements that scorched 2015’s Luv Is Rage and 2016’s Lil Uzi Vert Vs. the World into the rage-rap canon. Instead, here was a deflated System of a Down cover, a Big Time Rush collab, a Nicki Minaj feature where she forebodingly thanked the doctor who made her ass “great again, MAGA.” When Uzi cancelled a planned 31st-birthday Lollapalooza set last weekend amid severe weather warnings, it seemed like just the latest cloudy day in a marathon of drear.
Then, they surprise-dropped Maverick (Almost Forever), a battering ram of an EP that busts open the dam in Uzi’s catalog and all but washes away the blight of the past six years. Their first new release on freshly-launched imprint Cor(e), Maverick cuts through the downtrodden, “is this anything?” tone of EA2 to get to the backbone of Uzi’s triumphant 2015-2016 run. It’s the best project they’ve released since Eternal Atake: a course correction and a revitalization of their proto-rage era that never feels like a retread. Turns out, you don’t need to force an old dog to karaoke “Chop Suey” when their OG tricks are so impressive.
No score yet, be the first to add.
Seriously, when was the last time Uzi spat like this? “Maverick Intro” thrusts us into the action, instantly reminding you where they got their name—for rapping like a “little machine gun”–over a towering synth-and-snare stack courtesy of Trilla and ZeeGoinXrazy. The latter, a Connecticut beatmaker, earns every ounce of his promotion in the absence of frequent collaborator Brandon Finessin, who doesn’t appear for the first time since Luv Is Rage 2. A prime example is “Gas. Brake.,” a pressurized vessel for Uzi to bound into their pocket at the edge of breath control. It may seem like every artful description for a BBL baddie has been spoken for by now, but Uzi’s elastic delivery of “She done pulled up with her new body, she is my plaster bae” merits a spot in the crowded canon.
Across eight tracks, Uzi manages to evoke their greatest successes in spirit, not interpolation. “Yoko” could be mistaken for a Luv Is Rage demo if it didn’t directly reference their current partner JT. (“I hope JT don’t think she Yoko,” Uzi frets before moving on in all of five seconds: “I’m so fresh, you dressed like hobo.”) “Poured,” while clearly nostalgic for the codeined-out churn of “Top,” refreshes the formula with a beat that doesn’t switch so much as molt, transmogrifying over three minutes until it dissipates into a mound of beeping detritus. “Oh my gooood, I’m going hard,” Uzi chants in their signature drone, just as surprised as you are.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
