Lil Uzi Vert – Pink Tape

Pink Tape is the third studio album by American rapper and singer Lil Uzi Vert. It was released through Generation Now and Atlantic Records on June 30, 2023.The album features guest appearances from Travis Scott, Nicki Minaj, Bring Me the Horizon, Don Toliver, and Babymetal. Production was handled by a variety of record producers, including Bring Me the Horizon themselves, Don Cannon, Brandon Finessin, Arca, BNYX, Oogie Mane, Cubeatz, WondaGurl, Bugz Ronin, Ken Carson, Bobby Raps, Rick Rubin, Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian, Maaly Raw, Kobametal, Wheezy, and Charlie Handsome, among others.

The album was supported by one single, “Just Wanna Rock”, which was released on October 17, 2022. It is an alternative hip hop, punk rap, rage rap, rap metal, and rap rock album.

The album was first teased by Uzi in December 2020, (later revealed to be the songs Pluto to Mars, Aye, and I Gotta) during a two-hour-long Instagram Live in which they previewed unreleased music and revealed they would be dropping a mixtape exclusively on SoundCloud. Uzi announced the album’s title in an Instagram post on July 16, 2021.[4] The title might be a reference to the $24 million pink diamond they had pierced into their forehead in February 2021. On October 9, 2021, while attending a friend’s wedding, Uzi revealed to a fan that the tape would be released before Halloween. They later went back on those statements on October 22, explaining to some fans on the street:

No, it’s not [dropping next week]. Then it drop next week, and then it sounds like shit, and I gotta hear from like one-hundred-thousand people on the Internet, “This sucks!” So you gotta let me take my time… I’m taking my time so it won’t suck.

Months later, on December 2, 2021, Uzi appeared on a live stream with Kai Cenat in which they confirmed that the album would be completed the same night.[citation needed] Following the release of the lead and only single of the album, “Just Wanna Rock”, on October 17, 2022, Uzi’s manager, DJ Drama, suggested that the album is in its final stages while noting over 680 songs were considered for the album’s tracklist. In June 2023, Uzi noted that the album would be released the same month. On June 17, Uzi had taken to Instagram to post an alternate cover art to the project. Through an Instagram live on June 18 with Cenat, Uzi shared updates regarding the rollout and tracklist of the album as they noted that the tracklist would include twenty-six songs consisting of “Just Wanna Rock”, and two bonus songs which they described as:

special to me, that some people love that didn’t really get to reach the day of light.

They also announced that the cover art would release in “a couple of days” and that the tracklist would release “this week,” while confirming the release date of June 30. When asked by Kai about the features on the awaited album, Uzi stated:

Not that many features, but it’s the features that everybody think I should have…where I started is where imma finish.

On June 26, 2023, Uzi revealed the cover art and the release date on their website and simultaneously released the Gibson Hazard directed trailer for the album to build anticipation leading up to it.

Robin Murray from Clash stated: “A work of quite stunning creativity, Pink Tape is well worth the wait. Long rumoured, frequently speculated upon, only their most dogged of fans would have expected such brilliance – this lengthy, thrill-a-minute release could well be their finest moment.

Clayton Purdom from Rolling Stone stated: “Their long-awaited Pink Tape finds an artist still relentlessly barreling forward, leaving everyone in the dust–including, quite possibly, many listeners. Pink Tape is a 26-track, 90-minute gauntlet in which Uzi’s maximalism finds its fullest expression imaginable: galaxy-smashing rap-rock. Everything is as big as it can be. Uzi samples a WWE theme song at length, interpolates Eiffel 65’s “Blue,” and covers System Of A Down’s “Chop Suey” pretty much verbatim. It’s superhero theme music from an anime-worshiping genre apostate — an album of light-cycle chases and samurai clashes set to Def Leppard shredding.”

Jessica from Complex stated: Pink Tape is a decent album. It has a handful of great songs including “Flooded the Face,” “Suicide Doors,” “I Gotta,” and “Nakamura,” but the album also suffers from an extremely long tracklist and chaotic direction. Bouncing from an aggressive rap track to a melodic or rock ballad to a heavy metal record was a bit difficult to follow and made me dizzy. With that being said, I think a lot of these songs could grow on me when Uzi performs them live. But for anywhere besides a stage or arena, I will probably only listen to 8 songs from this project.” Eric stated: “Uzi’s spiked hair on the cover art wasn’t a fake-out. Uzi wants to rock—or at least make an album full of mosh pit anthems. For the most part, they succeeded, stretching their sound in adrenaline-fueled new directions without completely abandoning their quirky, melodic side either. Is there fat to trim? Yes. Did some of the metal crossover songs fall flat? To my ears, yes. Did they find room to make one of the personal songs of their career? Yes (listen to “Rehab”). And most importantly: Did they take interesting swings and connect on enough of them to make for an overall enjoyable listen? Absolutely.” Jordan stated: “There are too many Playboi Carti-isms and not enough Lil Uzi Vert-isms on Pink Tape. I enjoyed it when Uzi got creative and dipped into their punk rap bag, but the album is so overly long that the clutter of unnecessary songs distracts from what they’re trying to accomplish. Uzi is known for long albums, but this album feels like they’re trying to overcompensate for not dropping a project in several years. Kameron stated: “This album has some really good records such as “Patience,” “Crush Em,” “I Gotta,” “Rehab,” and “Died and Came Back” amongst a few others, but they were too few and far between in a project that otherwise lacked a clear focus. If Uzi separated the rock tracks and the hip-hop tracks into two separate projects, this might have been an easier project for me to digest. But with both fused into one project, it felt like a clash of sounds and styles more than a blending of them, often confusing me. Their catalog to this point had been otherwise stellar between their mixtapes such as Lil Uzi Vert vs. the World and their 2020 album Eternal Atake. But the Pink Tape feels like a low point in their catalog after several listens.”

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