Austin Vance
Staff Writer
Philadelphia rapper Lil Uzi Vert has retired from making music. He announced his retirement on his Instagram story on January 14 and has recently confirmed that he is still retired amid rumors of working on new music. Fans were extremely disappointed as Uzi had been teasing his new album “Eternal Atake” for months. On his retirement post, Uzi also mentioned that he deleted everything he recorded for the album.
Born Symere Woods, Uzi began his rap career in 2010 under the name “Vert” which he says originally stood for “vertical” like a “vertical jump”. He later changed his name to Lil Uzi Vert from the way someone described his flow, saying it was “fast, like a machine gun.”
His first project was an EP called “Purple Thoughtz Vol. 1” which released on January 19, 2014. This project caught the attention of major producer Don Cannon who ended up signing Uzi to a record deal with Atlantic Records later that year. In October of the next year Uzi would release his breakthrough mixtape “Luv Is Rage”. This mixtape would land him a spot on the 2016 XXL Freshman List and the title “breakout artist of 2015” by HotNewHipHop.
2016 would be the biggest year of Uzi’s career in terms of content as he would drop 2 commercial mixtapes. In April, he released “Lil Uzi Vert vs. the World” which would debut at number 37 on the Billboard 200 chart. Less than 3 months later, Uzi released his second commercial mixtape of the year “The Perfect Luv Tape” on his birthday. Both mixtapes are certified Gold by the RIAA. Uzi really broke into the mainstream in 2016 with “Money Longer” and “You Was Right” going double Platinum.
This success would continue into 2017, with the long awaited release of his debut album and sequel to “Luv Is Rage”, “Luv Is Rage 2”. The album was a commercial success, going Platinum in less than a year. It also earned him a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. Not only did Uzi experience a lot of solo success, but also collaborative. He featured on many songs, but most notably, he featured on “Bad and Boujee” by the Migos.This song also earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance.
After a meteoric rise to fame, Uzi had a very quiet 2018, only dropping one song in October called “New Patek” which is already certified Gold. The song was supposed to be a single off his upcoming album “Eternal Atake” which Uzi had originally teased back in August. The album had been rumored to come out in 2018, but after conflict between Uzi and Atlantic Records, the release it yet to be announced. Now that Uzi has retired, things don’t look so good for the album because Uzi said he deleted everything he recorded for it.
Many have speculated that Uzi has retired in an attempt to get out of his record label deal with Atlantic Records, but this is of course all speculation. Little is actually known as to why Uzi has decide to retire, but fans are desperate to know.
