Pink Tape by Lil Uzi Vert | Album Review

The Philly rapper returns to the spotlight 3 years later with their latest album

Listen to Pink Tape by Lil Uzi Vert: Apple Music | Spotify

Since their initial inception back in 2016 rapper Lil Uzi Vert has become the poster boy if you will for the last few years in rap music. Their musical style, fashion sense, and overall vibe easily characterized the SoundCloud era in the late 2010s. Unlike some of their cohorts who fell off or became redundant, Uzi is one of a few artists from their generation that’s maintained their high level of popularity and relevance even almost a decade later.

Pink Tape sees Uzi tap into their familiar territory of melodic, auto-tuned rap with incredibly atmospheric and spacey production, this time with a more heavy punk rock influence scattered throughout. The result is a fairly enjoyable album that’s as wacky as the artist behind it, however, it’s plagued with an abundance of unneeded tracks and questionable song choices that sour Uzi’s ambitions they wanted to show on this new album.

Production wise this is probably Uzi at their most experimental, they spread their wings on Pink Tape and embrace new sounds that serve them well. Their brand of emo rap pairs nicely with the album’s introduction of more electric guitars and metal drums on most songs. Tracks like “Suicide Doors” and “Amped” showcase this new side of Uzi, and they flow nicely with the album’s beats. Uzi’s signature melodic, slower ballads are also featured here, mainly to show off his euphoric auto-tuned croons.

It’s when Pink Tape decides to really push its limits musically that things become a hit or miss. Uzi goes full-blown heavy metal on “Werewolf” with a feature from Bring Me The Horizon and it sounds great surprisingly. BABYMETAL also makes an appearance on “The End”, bringing their J-pop/metal tinge front and center. Those not accustomed to the band are going to find this song very jarring. The Jersey club-influenced “Just Wanna Rock” and “Fire Alarm” provides the album’s more danceable tracks and showcase Uzi’s versatility. Yet for gems such as these, there are duds like “CS”, a cover of System of a Down’s “Chop Suey” which quite honestly, might be one of the worst songs I’ve heard all year.

This also leads to the album’s samples and interpolations which are again, hit or miss. They sample WWE wrestler Shinsuke Nakamura’s theme song on “ Nakamura” which brings another level of epicness to the wrestler’s song. Uzi even samples an excerpt from Charleston White criticising their fashion choices on “Suicide Doors”, perfectly setting up the song’s aggressiveness. However, then you’ll get a song like “Endless Fashion” where Uzi’s flow weirdly interpolates Flo Rida’s Candy and just sounds very odd.

The features here while sparse, add some light touches to the album but don’t really do too much here. Outside of the aforementioned BMTH and BABYMETAL, rappers Travis Scott, Nicki Minaj, and Don Toliver are also featured but don’t add anything special to their respective songs. While nice to have them I would have preferred hearing more rock/heavy metal features as that would’ve worked better with the album’s overall sound.

Pink Tape’s biggest detriment is easily its length, clocking in close to an hour and a half, a major bulk of the album is skippable and feels totally unnecessary. At some point, everything just melds together and total interest just fades away until the last song. Unfortunately, the album overstays its welcome and while I understand the need to feed the fans, trimming away a lot of the fat should’ve been considered.

Lyrically this is your standard Uzi affair of flexing, money, and emotions. Although they do address the conversation around their sexuality in the opener “Flooded The Face” (“First of all, I fuck eight bitches a day, how could you ever say Lil Uzi gay?”) There aren’t a whole lot of notable bars on here. Uzi’s flow and delivery however are great, they manage to tackle the album’s beats even when they get extremely bizarre such as “That Fiya”.

Overall, as ambitious as Pink Tape aims to be, and it does feature a handful of great tracks, it feels like a disappointment in my eyes. My initial reaction to Uzi’s latest album brings back the same feelings I had when I first listened to Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red. I was stunned and felt satisfied with what little I enjoyed but also felt very confused. I’m sure that Pink Tape will grow on me as the year goes by and will probably be appreciated more sometime in the future.

I’m feeling a 5/10 on Lil Uzi’s Pink Tape. I appreciate their ambitions to make an album that’s as unique as this, but it misses the mark with its bloated tracklist and strange song choices. Was this worth the 3 year wait? Not really, and I’m curious to see how fans are reacting to this album. Will this have the WLR effect as well? Only time will tell.

Final Rating: 5/10

Favourite Tracks: Suicide Doors, Nakamura, Just Wanna Rock, Werewolf.