Hi everyone, 2thony Hawttano here, the Internet's… hottest... AHHHHHHHH!!! And it's time for a review of this new Lil Uzi Vert EP, Maverick “Almost Forever” the EP.

Lil Uzi Vert, Philadelphia-rap phenomenon. Someone who you could call a game changer and a pioneer in many respects, or at least was one of the most major leaders in a lot of the trending sounds and aesthetics of hip hop that dominated the mid-2010s, really when SoundCloud rap, or what a lot of people derisively call mumble rap, was at its cultural peak.

And as much as a lot of those sounds have kind of like washed out with the tide, Lil Uzi Vert, to their credit, has very much outlasted the hype of many of their SoundCloud contemporaries and went on to evolve into at least a few other sounds and styles that also led to successful projects and singles.

But with that being said, though, I've increasingly been feeling like Lil Uzi Vert's creative legacy is kind of in question these days. Because the more I sit with a lot of these older projects, many of which honestly, I didn't really care for, and also the less I see people talking about them as the years draw on, even having personal come-to-Jesus moments about their actual level of artistic quality, it makes me kind of wonder if Uzi, more than any other artist in their generation, is kind of making the single-use plastic equivalent of music.

Because the more I go back to a lot of these older projects and songs, even ones that, honestly, at the time I perceived as having some decent highlights, be it either the Pink Tape or maybe even a few cuts from Luv Is Rage 2, even those tracks, I just don't really get that much out of these days. And I feel like I'm getting even less out of this new EP, and no, I don't just simply mean by virtue of it being a short seven-track project with a bonus song at the end. No, I literally think this is one of the worst and most pointless projects Uzi has ever released into the world.

Not only is there nothing new, nothing refreshing, nothing catchy, and nothing well put together among the eight tracks here, but this has to be one of the laziest crops of songs Uzi has ever put together, too. I mean, there are multiple performances on this record that are, honestly, god-awful. I did not pull up to this EP wanting to hear Uzi Vert rap as if the beat was just merely a suggestion. Because even if the flow on a given hook might be somewhat on point, as soon as the verses roll around, Uzi starts rapping as if they're in a race with the instrumental, making multiple tracks on this thing pretty much unlistenable from the jump, be it either the "Maverick Intro" or "Gas. Brake."

On the song "Go !" it's actually the mind-numbingly repetitive one-shots of "Go! Go! Go!" that make this one grating to listen to. But it's not like this EP is just sonically annoying, the lyrical content is pretty terrible too. Take, for example, the track "Poured" which is pretty much just Uzi stating their favorite type of cough syrup. We're literally writing cough syrup guzzling anthems with emo trap vocal leads at the age of 31. You didn't want to grow out of this at any point? Didn't want to switch it up or just kind of try something else?

And also, moving on to the song "223," how are you going to be non-binary and have an unironic "no-homo" bar on your song? The song "Say It Was" does have some relatable and commendable sentiments around losing loved ones who you knew at one time at a different point in your life. But whatever goodwill is struck up by this track is immediately just obliterated by the closing bonus, "London." Which is just nothing but Uzi straight-up, rapping in this mock British accent for a few minutes.

Just going like, "Ey govna, wo'ah bo'oh" I'm sorry, but who is vibing to this? This is just so stupid and unserious. And not even in, a cool, creative, funny, tongue-in-cheek, hee-hee-haha way. Whatever humor is here is just offensively dumb and juvenile that I can't even imagine who the hell this could be connecting with in 2026. I'm sorry, if you're around Lil Uzi Vert's age and you kind of grew up on their music, hearing them do basically the same thing you heard them do over ten years ago at this point, you should have moved on to better things.

Meanwhile, anybody who is a younger rap listener who is still in tune with the genre is most likely listening to the next generation of artists that yes, Uzi Vert inspired, but definitely have a bigger cultural chokehold on their listening diets than Uzi does currently. There's maybe a few moments of one track that, to me, sounded pretty passable, but literally everything else here is straight garbage.

Honestly, some of the worst music I've heard in 2026, some of the worst music of Uzi's career, and I feel like there's not really any getting around that. And yeah, while I'm sure some listeners will sort of rationalize, "well, hey, it's a random EP, dropped out of nowhere, maybe it's not that serious, maybe, it's not really meant to be that great."

I mean, sure, you could say that, but really compare this up against many of Uzi's other big projects, which also have not really withstood the test of time at all, and ask yourself, was Uzi ever really operating at that high of a level? Or were they always just making basic-ass chewing-gum music, and the only difference now is that it's losing its flavor faster? I'm feeling a light-too-decent 1 on this record. This is terrible. Yeah, this is awful.

Anthony Fantano, Lil Uzi Vert, forever.