Philadelphia rapper, Lil Uzi Vert, is considered by most to be one of the leaders of the new school. He is likable, idiosyncratic and frankly, a rockstar. He has revolutionized the game musically, but has also brought a new attitude and strategy as far as promotion, fan engagement and presentation of music.
For his second studio album, Lil Uzi Vert collected hype from dedicated fans for almost two years. When it came time to release the project, he took the promotional aspect out of the hands of the media. He is a true man of the people. He unprecedentedly let his fans on twitter vote on the album cover to involve his publics. Instead of getting write ups, doing interviews and showing his face on every show and channel out there, he had other artists tweet about the upcoming album to build hype. He brings a very DIY aesthetic to the industry and does it with some serious spunk.
Another norm he shot down was the “bundle” trend that is currently a huge part of hip hop. Most major artists tend to release merchandise that is paired with a digital copy of the album to increase sales. Uzi Vert strayed away from this. He released on piece of clothing but people had to dig and search for it on his website. Even though he strayed away from the industry norm, he still out-streamed all but three artists in the albums first week of release.
Uzi even released a deluxe album in the weeks following the release, however the deluxe was not a publicity stunt to boost sales or get an exclusive CD in target. It was basically a whole other album. For the people. Lil Uzi Vert is helping show the world that you don’t need to rely on major media outlets to garner attention. He instead engages his fans and continues to be a cult hero to them all.
