Ironic, no? The release of this song came just hours after TM88 tweeted that hadn't been paid for producing Lil Uzi Vert's undeniable breakout hit "XO Tour Lif3." Sometimes it makes little to no sense to ask questions though, so let's keep it moving.
“Mood” appeared on SoundCloud late Friday night, Uzi's first release of 2018. Credited to 808 Mafia producers TM88 and Southside, it’s their production that makes the biggest impact. It sounds like an introspective and finely detailed pop-trap ballad, and it would work brilliantly like that if Uzi wasn’t so committed to sticking his middle finger up at everything, pausing only to think about how cool his hands look. Uzi's hold on the melody is brilliant, and he puts together a decent hook — “Fuck these niggas 'cause they always bein' extra / All these diamonds on me, I don't feel no pressure / Money comin' in like I am an investor / She tried to take a break, but I already left her” — but he doesn’t move past that in the verses because he’s too caught up in the come-up. Or, in his own words, “Doin' these drugs, yeah, I'm outta my body.”
It's the same singalong psychedelic nihilism that Uzi's been working on from the start, and he's clearly getting close to perfecting it. It'd just be interesting to see where else he can push this.
In other news, I think we can all agree it's about time more producers like TM88 paid attention to Sonny Digital's proposal last year regarding a union for all producers, songwriters, engineers, etc. It's a dense topic with many moving parts, but there's a lot of validity and truth to what he's saying. Many producers believe they've been hustled and worked for too long and, conceptually, this could be a way to close the loop.
