Lil Uzi Vert. Baby Pluto. Uzi Vert. Symere. Whatever you know them as just know that they are back.
On Monday, rap fans were pleasantly surprised on social media as Lil Uzi Vert posted a lengthy video titled “Pink Tape Movie. Album Coming Soon.”
The video served as some fun entertainment, as the Philadelphia rapper could be seen fighting as a swordsman in an anime-inspired short film that announced the release of their much-anticipated third studio album, The Pink Tape.
The link allows fans to pre-save and/or pre-order the album ahead of its Friday release date. While Lil Uzi Vert has been anything but silent the last few years, fans reacted to the album announcement as if they have been in hiding for the last few years.
Yes, they haven’t been as active on social media, but they have still been putting out music. In October 2022, Uzi dropped the uber-popular record, “Just Wanna Rock,” which is still trending on social media as fans continue to do the viral dance.
In July 2022, they dropped the RED & WHITE - EP, which allowed fans to get a tiny preview of what Uzi was working on. But stans were still fawning over the possibility of the Philadelphia rapper dropping a proper studio album in 2023, and they finally got what they wanted.
There haven’t been any details on what songs will be on the album (outside of “Just Wanna Rock”), but we do know that there will be 26 tracks, making it the longest Uzi album ever.
On Sunday, days before Lil Uzi announced the release of The Pink Tape, he seemingly previewed music from the album during the 2023 BET Awards, as he kicked off the nostalgic celebration of Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary.
Weeks ago, it was reported that not one hip-hop album or single has charted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 or Hot 100 this year. Music listeners had a myriad of opinions on why such a thing has happened, pointing out that hip-hop has gotten stale and that fans are bored with the current trends of mainstream rap.
While I believe those things to be partly true, there just hasn’t been a huge mainstream hip-hop release this year, and with Lil Uzi Vert set to release The Pink Tape this Friday, I expect that trend to change.