Lil Uzi Vert, the supposed king of mumble rap, returns with a sequel to Luv is Rage two years later with Luv is Rage 2. I decided to take a dive into Uzi’s psychedelic, new-age, debut studio album and give it a listen. I recommend everyone give it a listen, even if the genre is not particularly your cup of tea. Here are my thoughts.

Highlights

X: This track features a space-like whistle swaying back and forth, sandwiched between Uzi’s typical bug-eyed ad libs and a basic 2 clap – 1 snare beat. It’s poppy and Uzi is chaotically animated during the song; he flits between heartfelt, melancholic bars of singing to shorter bursts of gung-ho lyrical flow. His ability to seamlessly balance the two in the same song is remarkable. 9/10

The Way Life Goes: This song capitalizes on the low key and mellow vibe that Neon Guts botched so miserably by interlacing it with dashes of staccato bars and a clear cut variation between chorus and verses. The beat features a fluctuating and psychedelic electronic synthesizer and some complimentary keyboard, and the beat is perfectly coupled with the lyrical flow. The song is so beautifully crafted that it will make you feel like you’re mourning a lost relationship, even if you’re nowhere close to that state of mind. It may be unscholarly to say this, but he’s just so vibe-y. 8.5/10

Lowlights

Pretty Mami: The most disappointing thing about this song is that it has absolutely no lyrical content, and can’t seem to hold an idea for more than three seconds. I genuinely couldn’t tell you what this song was even after my third listen through. This song desperately needs some focus; Uzi switches from talking about all the money he makes, to a Spanish girl named Rosa, to flexing his diamonds… all in the same bar. The beat is interesting enough; here’s a slow reverberating rumble over varying intervals of claps and snares, which is compelling but doesn’t really grab your attention. I can appreciate that Uzi mixes it up by belting chords into his melancholic style, but there are some intrusive vocal effects at the beginning and ending of the song that ruin his singing and remove our ability to hear his inflection. Initially, the song was going to be cut off the track … should’ve stayed that way. 5/10

Neon Guts ft. Pharrell Williams: The The entire time I listened to this song, I felt like I was waiting for something to happen. The beat is very simple and in a lower key. There’s no excitement or variation this song that we have come to expect from the rest of this album. Likewise, Pharrell Williams feature is wasted and he does little of what he is so good at; singing. Uzi and Williams just seem to at best talk melodically to the beat. The entire song just blends together because of this monotonous style, and it becomes hard to differentiate the chorus from the verses as there is not much variation. The beat a recurring bass hit on every half bar, with a bit of keyboard interlaced throughout, which does little to placate the initial boringness of the song. I’m personally not crazy about it, and found it easily forgettable. 4/10

Closing Remarks

The album is caught between wanting to be a typical party, hard exterior rap album but on the other hand also finds itself being gloomily introspective. It was a tad disappointing to see that after Uzi seemed to make many strides in delivering on songs with actual content, and that had contemplative subject matter on so many tracks on this album, he still has a few bad tracks where he slips into the meaningless cliche rap artist that so much of America believes hip hop to be. However, in actuality, the album proves that Uzi is one of the mainstays of this new generation of hip hop up and comers. He proves yet again that he is the king of aiming for a vibe in his songs and achieving it through means other than just his lyrics (the beat, the singing, etc). The album is well tied together and has a unified sound, and each song brings its own unique feel to the album. Overall, this album felt like one of the most complete projects that Uzi has released to date, and even if you are not a hip hop fan, it is worth your time to give it a listen, even if only to see what all the hype is about.