From SoundCloud to mainstream: Lil Uzi Vert vs. PlayBoi Carti

Lil Uzi Vert is arguably one of the greatest rappers of the decade with hits like “XO Tour Llif3”, “You Was Right” and “20 min.” Then there’s Playboi Carti who is also a rapper with many hits but I’m not naming them because I don’t want to give him any more streams. While I do enjoy listening to them both very much, ultimately I would like to say Uzi is better, and there are many reasons why I say this. This isn’t dedicated to bashing Playboi Carti in any way but it is just a light comparison of these two artists

The first thing you want to do when comparing them is look at their best song streams. Now, this doesn’t determine who exactly the best artist is because music is subjective but it can however give insight into who the more influential artist is.

The song “XO Tour Llif3 ” practically ran the first half of 2017 in terms of streams with over 1.7 billion on Spotify. This song is an absolute masterpiece, perfectly crafted and executed. Now the reason why I’m using “XO Tour Llif3 ” is that it’s a song everyone has heard at one point or another, besides being Lil Uzi’s biggest hit. Since we are using the artist’s biggest hits I’m going to use Playboi Carti’s song “Magnolia.” If you’re not familiar with this song it’s the one that goes “In New York I Milly rock. Hide it in my sock.” Now this song also came out around 2017 as well and as someone who lived in New York at this time, there was no escaping this song. Now I personally felt like this song could never get old as I listened to it frequently and still till this day. This song also did very well with streams reaching 600+ million on Spotify. Men lie, women lie but numbers don’t. Just with these numbers, we can see who the more loved artist in the community is. As I mentioned previously, this doesn’t exactly make him the better artist as that is just my opinion. But he does in fact have overall better statistics than his competitor Playboi Carti which means Lil Uzi is statistically the better artist.

Now another big thing that needs to be brought up when comparing artists is consistency. Uzi wins this by a long shot as he is way more consistent with dropping music than Playboi Carti is. Uzi drops singles left and right meanwhile Carti hasn’t dropped anything significant since Christmas of 2020. Granted people kept leaking his music causing multiple delays in the album release. But besides that, Playboi Carti has been pretty quiet when it comes to releasing songs. Fans have been waiting for the album “Narcissist” forever yet they still haven’t got it. All we get from Carti is a leaked recording on someone’s iPhone in another room. This isn’t even an exaggeration, that’s exactly how it is when it comes to Playboi Carti. 

Meanwhile, Uzi just dropped a new EP in the summer called “Red & White.” Before that he had a collaboration album with the popular artist Future, and even before that he dropped his solo album “Eternal Atake.” Besides all these album drops Lil Uzi has many singles he has put out throughout the years. He might randomly be featured on your favorite artist’s song. As I am typing this right now he has a trending single out right now called “Just Wanna Rock.” My point is that Lil Uzi is way more consistent with dropping music than Playboi Carti, which is a huge reason I like him more.

Now Playboi Carti is a great artist who puts up great numbers as well. He has some all-time classic albums too especially his self-titled one “Playboi Carti.” While all this is very much true, unfortunately, none of them can outdo anything Uzi has dropped statistically and impact-wise. I’m a huge Carti fan as well. He’s in my top three favorite artists and he isn’t three. But he just is not beating Uzi as he has the better statistics and is way more consistent than he is when it comes to dropping music. I understand it’s hard to drop stuff when your music is constantly getting leaked. But Lil Uzi also has his music constantly leaked and even recently confronted a hacker who kept releasing his music early. Did that stop him from dropping albums and singles? No. I’m Going to give Carti the benefit of the doubt because when he does drop it’s really good. 

Now that I have given you my reasons as to why Lil Uzi Vert is better than Playboi Carti, go listen to any two songs by both of them and compare them, then you will see what I mean. I would like to clarify that both these artists are really good and there is no wrong answer as to who is actually better as that is your opinion I simply stated mine. But nothing beats when they collaborate on a song it is just a whole different level of talent. I encourage you all to give them both a listen as they are both really talented artists.