Our Favorite Weeb Lil Uzi Vert

Lil Uzi Vert spits five minutes and forty-three seconds of continuous heat for his first single of 2018. “New Patek” produced by Dolan Beats, was dropped last month. Charting at #38 the first week, his infectious dance has been sweeping social media spawning challenges and memes. A not so gentle reminder for us not sleep on his speculated upcoming album, Eternal Atake.

“New Patek” also reminds us of Uzi’s long love for anime. Referencing popular anime like Naruto by Masahi Kishimoto, “Throwing gang signs up, Naruto’. ‘Put metal in my nose like Pain”. He doesn’t just make lyrical references if you didn’t quite catch the sample, it comes from the anime Death Parade’s OST. An anime about people in the afterlife that have to play games to decide their fate.

These tributes of Japanese animation have been prevalent in Uzi’s music since his early career, but haven’t been made since his third mixtape, The Perfect Luv Tape in 2016. He references classic anime One Piece by Eiichiro Oda in “Of Course We Ghetto Flowers”, “Dressed in all black, sharp as a tack. Cut a bitch off, Zoro”. One Piece has been running since 1997 and is rumored only 60% done.

As well as recreating a ridiculous and hilarious live action anime in Japan starring Lil Uzi himself and doppelganger of his ex-muse, Brittney in the “Ps and Qs” music video. Uzi is in a classroom with comically large eyes and traditional Japanese uniform, trying to win over the love of a fellow classmate. The live action anime transitions to crudely drawn pictures of the scenes in anime-style. 3D model battles with shuriken and ki energy.  Or referencing the 90s phenomenon Pokémon, “I just caught me a MewTwo, Japanese girls stuck to me just like some glue” in “Canadian Goose”.

“Super Saiyan Trunks”, named after cult favorite Dragon Ball Z off Luv is Rage was one of the first tracks I ever heard from Lil Uzi Vert in 2015. After peaking my interest with his rapid flow and great ear for production I searched YouTube to find a music video of “He Did it”. It’s an early loosie poorly synced to an AMV, a fan-made music video meant to match the song. The official video is a rough montage of multiple anime like, Black Lagoon, Soul Eater, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and more spliced in with clips of Brittney and cheap after effects.

Maybe we will be hearing some more anime-themed bars or samples in Uzi’s Eternal Atake. I’m looking forward to the next commercial release of our favorite weeaboo.