March 18, 2020
Lil Uzi Vert's newest album, "Eternal Atake," is No. 1 on Billboard's album charts with more than 400 million streams since its drop earlier this March.
It is the most streamed album since Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter V," which was released in 2018. It has been streamed more than 400 million times. Despite coronavirus' impact on other elements of the music industry, such as wide-spread concert cancellations, Uzi's online presence is going strong as fans listen from home.
On March 13, a week after his album came out, Uzi dropped an extended version titled "Eternal Atake (Deluxe)-LUV vs. The World 2." On it, there were 14 new songs in addition to the 16 tracks, plus two bonus songs, on the prior version of "Eternal Atake." This likely boosted his streams even more.
At the same time of his success, the North Philly rapper is dealing with an album art scandal. Instagram user @hugeriver8, claims Uzi stole the art that he used as one of his album covers.
The account posted a side-by-side comparison with artist's work next to Uzi's cover for his single "That Way," showing how the images are almost identical, but with different characters featured in each. The caption of the post read, "I saw lil uzi vert's latest album cover art and it was very similar to my painting. My picture was posted on my blog six years ago."
Uzi fans tagged him in the post, which he then responded to, saying, "Hey I’m not a mean person or a thief I get inspired a lot. If you want Money I will have my team contact and give you Money. Signed… Baby Pluto. P.S. You are a great artist."
The artist behind Uzi's album art, Detroitmir313/@artxstic, who actually created Uzi's "That Way" cover, also responded to the scandal.
"No, I’m not mad at Uzi and yes I’m gonna make sure to make the original artist happy," Detroitmir313 wrote in a post.
Uzi has been called out about his album art prior to this. Members of the Heaven's Gate cult threatened the rapper with legal action over the original cover design for "Eternal Atake" which closely resembled the Heaven's Gate logo on their website.
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