What has been going on between Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti recently? The two have spent much of their free time going back and forth on Twitter over the past few weeks. One minute, there are subliminal shots being fired, like Uzi’s response to Carti’s new single, “@MEH.” The next moment, they’re both tweeting the same messages within seconds of each other, leading many to believe they’re trolling or gearing up to release new music together.
You could say that Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert have become frenemies—or at least that’s how it looks at a glance. They started out as natural collaborators, working on songs like “Of Course We Ghetto Flowers” in 2016, followed by “wokeuplikethis” and “Lookin’” in 2017. During this period, Uzi and Carti were also each other’s biggest supporters. While Uzi helped promote Carti’s self-titled mixtape in April 2017, saying, “He dropped the best damn album that I ever heard,” Carti reciprocated the love in various interviews. “Me and Uzi be in the studio together at all times and we just be knowing. Carti said in conversation with Genius. “We a team.”
Then, things got complicated, as rumors of a possible beef between the stars ignited in 2019. To help you stay in the loop, we broke down their relationship throughout the years, from announcing a joint mixtape to sneak dissing on Twitter. Follow along below.
September 2017: Playboi Carti announces ‘16*29’ joint mixtape with Lil Uzi Vert
Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti broke out around the same time, and quickly became two of rap’s brightest stars to watch. Having collaborated on previously-released singles like “wokeuplikethis” and “Lookin’,” the duo decided to work together on a full joint project. In 2017, Playboi Carti took to Snapchat, where he seemingly announced a joint mixtape, called 16*29. The title paid homage to both artists’ upbringings: Carti came up in Atlanta’s 2900 neighborhood, while Uzi reps North Philly’s 1600 neighborhood. Less than a month after the announcement, the duo’s collaboration “Break the Bank” was leaked. The single was believed to be the lead track from the mixtape.
October 2017: Uzi and Carti unveil (and cancel) 16*29 Tour
With 16*29 expected to drop shortly, the duo announced an accompanying tour. The 18-city tour was slated to be supported by G Herbo and SOBxRBE, and would hit venues in Miami, Atlanta, Washington DC, and more. Days after the tour announcement though, Lil Uzi Vert appeared to back out. When asked about the tour cancellation rumors on Twitter, Uzi responded, saying that he was “not going on tour with Carti” because he “needed 2 focus.”
July 2018: Carti says he and Uzi have 100 unreleased songs in the vault
Several months after the 16*29 debacle, Playboi Carti visited Los Angeles radio station Real 92.3. Carti didn’t provide a definitive answer about the whereabouts of his joint project with Uzi, but he did reveal the two had a surplus of unreleased music in the vault. “We’ve been recording since like 2015,” Carti said, noting that they had already recorded “like 100 songs.” “We know what we got to do. We know what we're capable of. We just gotta do what we gotta do.”
November 2019: Rumors of beef start, Uzi says they took ‘a different route’
In 2019, it seemed that the joint mixtape was long behind Carti and Uzi. Their friendship also appeared to take a major hit. Uzi participated in a Twitter Q&A session where he answered questions pertaining to his friendship with Carti. When asked whether the two were on good terms, Uzi simply replied, “No.” He later elaborated on his comment, saying that he decided to take “a different route.”
March 6, 2020: Uzi insists he’s not beefing with Carti
Following Uzi’s November 2019 comment, fans were understandably convinced that there was bad blood between Uzi and Carti. But Uzi confused fans once again when he hopped on Twitter to say the two were not at war. “We not beefing dude,” Uzi tweeted in response to a fan commenting on their rumored issues. This new revelation was around the time Uzi was promoting the release of his long-awaited Eternal Atake album. Many suspected Uzi’s latest comment meant that a collaboration between the duo would appear on EA, although it never did.
March 7, 2020: Uzi says he wants to collaborate with Carti, but he can’t find him
In the spirit of not beefing, Uzi took to Twitter, where he answered questions about the features that would appear on his Eternal Atake album. When one fan suggested he do a song with Carti, Uzi stated that he was unable to locate Carti at the moment. Two days later, on March 9, another fan brought up the fact that both artists said they had a large collection of unreleased songs together. Uzi responded to the fan’s request to drop one of the unreleased tracks, tweeting, “I would love to, use don’t know where he at,” which implied that he still could not reach Carti.
March 18, 2020: Uzi retweets unreleased collaboration with Carti
Lil Uzi Vert gave fans hope that a collaboration with Playboi Carti would be dropping soon after he re-shared a post that teased an unreleased song on Twitter. On March 18, a fan shared a short clip of Uzi and Carti’s track “Big Bank,” asking whether the full version would ever hit streaming platforms. “Big Bank” previously leaked online in 2018. While Uzi didn’t respond with a direct answer, he did retweet the message for everyone to see.
March 19, 2020: Uzi seemingly says as soon as Carti drops, he’ll release new music
With his Eternal Atake album finally on streaming platforms, fans were asking for Playboi Carti to drop his highly-anticipated album, Whole Lotta Red. Taking note of the fan requests, Uzi seemingly tweeted that he would drop new music once Carti dropped. “Soon as HE drop imma drop again,” he wrote. Lil Uzi Vert didn’t use Carti’s name in the tweet, but many speculated the “HE” Uzi was referring to was his frenemy.
April 16, 2020: Carti returns with “@MEH,” Uzi responds by calling it “Just Meh”
After a long wait, Playboi Carti returned on April 16, with his single “@MEH.” As fans shared their mixed reactions, Uzi also stepped in with words of his own. Shortly after the single’s release, Uzi shared new artwork (which hadn’t been seen before) with the caption “Just Meh.” Uzi previously said the two were not beefing, but many fans took this post as shade to Carti. Uzi continued to fuel those rumors poking fun at a fan who said Carti’s single was a hit. Uzi replied with the laughing emoji, implying he was not impressed with “@MEH.”
April 16, 2020: Carti and Uzi tease mysterious Monday release date, but don’t drop music
At first, fans thought Uzi had reignited a beef with Playboi Carti after he tweeted the “@MEH” artwork with a shady caption. But the situation took yet another turn when both rappers tweeted: “.MoNDaY.” The text was written the exact same way and was posted within minutes of one another. Some fans suspected that the beef was staged, while others thought that Uzi’s copycat tweet was in reference to a comment he made in March, when he said he would drop new music when Carti does. While Lil Uzi Vert did tease new music on Twitter, neither artist actually dropped music on Monday, April 20, as promised. At 10:00 p.m. on Monday, as the day was coming to a close, Uzi quote-tweeted Carti and wrote, “Did u drop yet?” with an eye roll emoji.
