I’m convinced that Lil Uzi Vert is an alien – an alien sent from a sci-fi future to drive rap’s evolution forward. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. The chronically online elders among us will remember the Howard the Alien meme of 2016, in which a slender, ET-like figure danced to bass-boosted versions of Uzi’s recent hit “Money Longer” – often for ten hours at a time. Even back then, this sort of uncanny valley beat-matched dance video wasn’t new (cast your minds back to the early-internet CGI Spiderman that could dance to anything), but the Howard the Alien videos made a very important point: Lil Uzi’s music sounded like it was from another world.
And the parallels don’t stop there. In 2020, Uzi would release the sci-fi trap album Eternal Atake (coincidentally inspired by the same Heaven’s Gate cult that fakemink credits for influencing his first moniker, 9090gate), which is replete with intergalactic samples and otherworldly, glitchy effects. Meanwhile, in their numerous guest appearances, Uzi would consistently find themselves at the cutting edge of rap trends – emo rap, country rap, jersey club; the list goes on.
To a certain extent, Lil Uzi has always been a misfit. Despite breaking through as part of the cloud rap wave in 2014, and then riding the mainstream popularity of trap music in the mid-2010s, Uzi has repeatedly stated that their biggest musical influences are Marilyn Manson and Paramore, and frequently describes themselves as a ‘rockstar’ in interviews. It speaks to a musical open-mindedness that has also been long evident in their fashion sense, appearing over the years rocking brightly coloured hair and punk rock-style ripped jeans. All of this provides important context on the many rap subgenres Lil Uzi has spearheaded throughout their career, but, to me, it is all an elaborate ruse: Lil Uzi Vert is in fact an alien sent from the future, and I won’t accept any other answer.
Below, we break down six times that Lil Uzi Vert found himself at the cutting-edge of current rap trends.
Landing on Uzi’s first EP Purple Thoughtz Vol. 1, “White Shit” is produced by cloud rap pioneer and Raider Klan founder SpaceGhostPurrp. Cloud rap, of course, wasn’t new at this point – landmark releases from A$AP Rocky, Lil B and Sad Boys-Drain Gang all predated it – but Purple Thoughtz Vol. 1 did place Uzi at the centre of what was perhaps the most influential rap subgenre in recent memory. Intersecting psychedelic, southern hip-hop-style production, trap drums, and influences spanning everything from J-Pop to ambient music, cloud rap is largely responsible for the countless rap microgenres we see today, and also paved the way for Uzi’s numerous rap reinventions in the years since.
While Uzi’s debut was in cloud rap, it was their 2016 mixtape Luv Is Rage that saw them first reach notoriety. The project is centred around the Atlanta trap movement that was picking up steam around that time, featuring an early mumble rap verse from rising star Young Thug and trap’s signature stuttering drum patterns. The next year it was followed up by Uzi’s appearance on perhaps the biggest trap song of all time: Migos’ “Bad and Boujee”.
Even on Luv Is Rage, Uzi was injecting their own misfit personality into rap music. On “Top”, Uzi introduces the groaning, pop-punk style vocals that would later become central to Juice WRLD’s emo rap, while the project’s title hints at another fledgling subgenre: rage rap.
Codified by Playboi Carti albums Die Lit (2018) and Whole Lotta Red (2020), rage rap is a subgenre of trap that infuses trap percussion with the video-game-like synthesisers of EDM producers like Skrillex and The Chainsmokers. Through rappers like Lancey Foux and Xaviersobased, the subgenre has since become a key reference for much of the underground rap we hear today, and elements of it can be traced back to Lil Uzi’s Luv Is Rage in 2015.
On tracks like “Banned From TV”, Lil Uzi raps over the sort of distorted synths that have since become a staple of rage music, while the project’s title makes explicit reference to ‘rage’ as a musical influence. “I am rage, everything that I do, I’m raging… a lot of the songs are a little darker and stuff,” Uzi told GlobalGrindTV in 2016 . But perhaps the biggest example of Lil Uzi’s involvement in the subgenre is their appearance on Playboi Carti’s 2017 single “Wokeuplikethis”, on which the distorted synthesiser runs prominently throughout the track.
“XO Tour Llif3” is one of the biggest hits of Uzi’s career, if not the biggest. Released alongside the peak of fellow emo rappers Juice WRLD, Lil Peep and XXXTentacion, the track features the jilted pop-punk vocals and themes of suicidal ideation that are not only a staple of the emo rap subgenre, but also contain clear similarities with the influences of Marilyn Manson and Paramore that Uzi had cited previously.
Leading with the chorus “All my friends are dead, push me to the edge”, “XO Tour Llif3”’s fixation on death is not least significant given the tragic and untimely passing of Juice, Peep and X within two years of the track’s release, giving the song a particularly haunting legacy.
On a lighter note, however, is Uzi’s decidedly tongue-in-cheek appearance on the remix of Lil Tracey’s 2018 single “Like A Farmer”. Featuring lyrics like “Yes, I have a tractor” and “Took her on a trip to Texas, treat it like Dubai”, the track showed a new, humorous side to Uzi, and was also inadvertently responsible for a resurgence in the country rap subgenre. Alongside Young Thug’s 2017 mixtape Beautiful Thugger Girls, “Like a Farmer”’s use of acoustic production and Southern American drawl is a key precursor to Lil Nas X’s viral hit “Old Town Road”.
Continuing Uzi’s popularisation of niche rap subgenres is his 2022 jersey club-rap hit “Just Wanna Rock”. Originating in Newark, just up the road from Uzi’s own hometown of Philadelphia, jersey club is most recognisable by its pulsing kick drum rhythm, along with its fusion of uptempo house music and hip hop. Much like many of the genres above, Uzi wasn’t the first rapper to touch a Jersey club beat – artists like Unicorn151 had been doing so since the late 2000s – but “Just Wanna Rock” did mark the mainstream peak for the subgenre, with the track even being nominated for a Grammy.
“Just Wanna Rock”’s music video is also notable for pioneering the hyperactive dance trend that was since revived in Uzi’s most recent hit: jersey-rap-slash-waltz cut “What You On”. Even today, Lil Uzi Vert’s genre-blending legacy shows no signs of slowing down.
