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Luv is Rage 2, Too Little Luv Shown
by Alexander Linstad
Cementing his place as one of the best late 2010s to 2020s rappers, Symere Woods, known by their stage name of Lil Uzi Vert, released a sequel to their debut streaming EP, “Luv is Rage” in the form of “Luv is Rage 2” in August of 2017. This album highlights the highs and lows of their vocals as they rap on a variety of beats. While the first album had more trap vibes, this album could be described as whimsical and fun.
Woods opens the album with their iconic tag, “Uzi, wake your ass up” mirroring their intro to “Luv is Rage”. A key difference however is Kesha Lee, their mixing engineer voices it this time rather than their ex, Brittany Byrd. This subtle difference sets up the sadder lyrics in some of the songs. The opening track “Two®” regards their growth since their original tape after the massive commercial success of songs such as “Money Longer” and "Lookin by Playboi Carti featuring Uzi. For the next tracks, “444+222”, “Sauce it Up”, and “No Sleep Leak” , Lil Uzi features more upbeat songs they often perform with shoutouts to fellow rappers which helped them succeed, including Jay-Z who would later go on to sign them and Playboi Carti who helped Woods climb the charts.
Up next, we get a little taste of the heartbreak Woods experienced after his complicated relationship with Byrd. As high school sweethearts on and off since 2014, Uzi and many others thought they were meant to be as Woods says in the lyric, “Just talked to your homie she said we should be together. Gave me brain, was so insane that I made her my header”. Even though there were many times Uzi was unfaithful he kept on coming back in the end. Now that the relationship is over Uzi repeats the line many times, “If she ever call my phone you know I gotta dead her (Dead her). But I like that girl too much, I wish I never met her ''. Their struggle to get over her requires him to cut off all contact and wish they never had to go through the pain of leaving. On top of the sadder lyrics, Uzi places a catchy repetitive beat produced by Ike beats generating an immediate hit as one of their most streamed songs.
Amongst the classic album there are many forgettable boring tracks. One of the weaker tracks is “For Real”, its monotonous vocals and dull beat make it an instant skip. Continuing the trend of mediocre tracks there is “Feelings Mutual”, while Uzi tries slightly harder it is still dragged down by the rather generic beat. Uzi breaks the lull with one of their best four track runs. He features Pharrel Williams and The Weeknd for classic songs, “Neon Guts” and "Unfazed”.
He also finally showcases why he is a self proclaimed “rockstar” (according to his verse on “Wokeuplikethis*” on Carti's self-titled album) in the track “Early 20 Rager”. The song just screams rage. Uzî switches their sound up the most for a deeper heavily autotuned chopped song. The song doesn’t really have much meaning behind it but it remains a decent piece amongst the tracklist.
Amongst the last four songs there are two most memorable ones, “Malfunction” and “XO TOUR LIF3”. “Malfunction” consists of Uzi going back and forth with an auto tuned and deeper voice of themself. While it is a fun listen, it is really just Uzi meaninglessly rapping for 3 minutes, still worth a listen.
Concluding the album is the highlight song, the song that really boosted Uzi to mainstream, XO TOUR LIF3. With over 2B streams on Spotify and 500M on the music video, it highlights the mainstream ability of Uzi. He sings about breaking up with Britany and how it left him at a low. His lyrical genius and true ability comes out on this song, with the lines “I like the way that she treat me Gon' leave you, won't leave me, I call it that Casanova” being just one example. He flows over the beat smoothly, rapidly describing how Brittany grounded him and even though he was happy with her, their personality would naturally draw other women to him just like the Italian adventurer Giacomo Casanova. His effort and emotion throughout this beat shines and concludes the album, marking it as a breakout album.
While this album is filled with ups and downs it is unfortunately plagued with the same problem as many of his other albums, just too many forgettable tracks. If I had to place the album on a 1 to 10 scale it would be a light six.
