For all of 2016’s rising talents, Lil Uzi Vert may be the one least like to fit neatly in any boxes. But that hasn’t slowed down his success at all after SoundCloud crowned him their most followed artist of 2016 and he earned his first no. 1 with Migos’ “Bad and Boujee” to start out 2017. The thing is he pretty much had to succeed in music, all due to one simple lifestyle choice he made years ago.
In his new cover story for FADER, the Philadelphia talent explained how he trying his hand at a “regular” job for less than a week let him know that wasn’t the move for him. “I had a job for f*cking four days,” he said. “I couldn’t do it. I’m not normal. I was in there just thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?'”
His mom wasn’t cool with him quitting his gig and she ended up kicking him out of the house.
Instead of languishing in work he wasn’t invested in, the “Money Longer” rapper decided to bet on his musical talents and made a permanent bet with himself. “It was like, ‘If I get this face tattoo, I got to focus,'” he said. “I can’t go in nobody’s office with a suit on with this shit on my face. I got to focus on what I want to do.” Homeless yet undeterred, he went out and got the word “Faith” etched into his skin right below his hairline.
With the decision, he’s gone full speed ahead and become one of the genre’s young rockstars along the way. But, with all of the spoils, there are still other, more serious obligations that keep Uzi focused with his career and has no intentions of looking back on his decisions from the past. He said, “You wanna know what the curse is? I gotta take care of my family. That’s the curse right there. I gotta take care of my whole family. That’s why I can’t stop. If I ain’t have to take care of nobody, best believe I’d be regular as f*ck.”
Although the misgivings are understandable, he’s handled fame without enduring too many public mistakes and done well for himself and his family, too. It was a risky bet that’s likely paying off beyond anything Uzi ever expected.
Read the full interview over at The FADER.
