Steve 'Flash' Juon“Got the money and the fame
You a lame, that’s a shame”
If you were expecting sophisticated poetical bars from Lil Uzi Vert then you clearly don’t know him at all. Vert is a rapper who is all about style over substance, punctuating his bars with exhortations of “YUH!” or “YAH!” just to make banal likes like “I might just put some diamonds all on my wrist/every bitch in my face gon’ give me kiss” on “Hi Roller” more interesting. “Lil Uzi Vert vs. the World” reflects what he was before this (his third) mixtape AND what we could expect from him in the future perfectly.
What would be a deficit for some artists though is actually a strength for Vert. Armed with the knowledge that vert-ually nothing he says matters, he can put all of his focus into linking up with producers like Don Cannon and dropping singles like “Money Longer.” All he has do to is make up a hook that listeners can imitate and set it to a booming beat that will captivate the streets (or let’s be honest the suburbs). If you’re this honest with yourself about how little effort you have to put into saying anything meaningful, you can just brag about how many zeroes are in your bank account without worrying about whether or not the numbers will increase in interest — figuratively and literally.
This reaches peak Vert-icality on the Metro Boomin produced “You Was Right.” With over 130 million views in the last decade, you’d be a stone cold hater to admit it doesn’t work. It’s a catchy tune. Vert does at least possess a quality his clones don’t — a sing-song delivery that burrows its way into your ear like a Ceti eel. “Baby Are You Home” wasn’t released as a single but it’s even catchier, and I personally wish Vert and Boomin had chosen this one to promote instead.
Not only does Vert have his reckless disregard for being anything other than self-absorbed going for him on “Lil Uzi Vert vs. the World,” he also has the incredibly short length working in his favor. At just over a half hour long there’s not enough time for me to get tired of how vapid he is before “Scott and Ramona” is over. It’s an interesting choice for the finale given that the Scott Pilgrim movie inspired the name choice for his own album. Scott has to go on a painful journey of personal growth in the novels that said film is based on, but year after year, Lil Uzi Vert seems to remain exactly the same.