How Much Lil Uzi Vert Made From First-Week 'Pink Tape' Streams 💰️

Lots of new music is dropping tonight—King Von and EST Gee are for the trap fans. Melodic rap fans, look out for Lil Tjay and J Hus. In other news today:

• Pocket-watching Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape bag 💰️ 

• Playboi Carti’s tour announcement leaks album news 🤫 

• YNW Melly’s messages show tension amongst YNW collective before murders 🤯 

• Fans speculate Lil Uzi Vert hid satanism in Pink Tape cover 😈 

• Industry Insights 📈 

Lil Uzi Vert’s ‘Pink Tape’ Streaming Revenue

It’s a new Thursday and a new song revenue chart. As reported by Hits Double Daily, which tracks streaming revenue week over week, the above chart reflects the streaming period from June 30th to July 6th.

The numbers are in for first-week streams of Pink Tape, and 11 out of 26 songs charted in HDD’s Top 50 song revenue chart. Unsurprisingly, “Flooded The Face” was the most popular, earning almost $88K from 18M streams.

Overall, Lil Uzi Vert made $566K from 117M streams of the above 11 songs from Pink Tape. The exact numbers are $566,631 in revenue from 117,684,000 streams.

A Press Release for Playboi Carti’s ‘Antagonist’ Tour Leaks Album News

It’s a Whole Lotta Opium for Playboi Carti’s latest tour, Antagonist, featuring his roster of artists. Destroy Lonely, Ken Carson and Homixide Gang are hitting the road with Carti visiting cities in North America and Europe as of September.

Before the tour starts, Carti is headlining Rolling Loud Miami the weekend of July 21st, and the festival tweeted that he’ll be debuting a new stage design. It could hint at what to expect from the Antagonist tour.

For Opium fans, the good news is that Destroy Lonely’s collab with pinkpantheress, “turn off your phone”, is dropping tonight (July 14th). The bad news is that Ken Carson’s new album, A Great Chaos, has been delayed, but his single “It’s Over” got a July 21st release date.

The Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin is hosting a stop on Carti’s tour, and their press release was either a major spoiler or fake news. The original announcement read, “After the release of his new album ‘MUSIC,’ the 26-year-old artist will pay Europe a visit in the context of his ‘Antagonist’ tour.” It’s since been revised, and that sentence was removed, but it suggests that they accidentally leaked Carti’s plans to release an album during the tour.

You’re probably thinking, another Carti tease? Yawn—next. I hear you, he’s a notorious liar about releases, but a press release doesn’t usually include baseless information like Carti subreddits.

Context for those of you out touching grass

The last time Carti hit the road was in 2021 for his Narcissist tour. The tour was cryptically teased on Carti’s socials as the word “Narcissist” with no other context, which sparked the usual drop the album excitement until he finally shared dates, and fans were left with blue balls and no album. Not much has changed, but Narcissist was in support of Whole Lotta Red, Carti’s last album, so there’s hope that new music will follow the tour announcement.

Why this matters

Almost every major rapper has their own label, but Carti’s approach to Opium is unique. His artists seem hand-picked, variants of his own punk metal-influenced aesthetic and sound but not copycats.

Doing the Antagonist tour with the entire Opium roster is a business decision 💼 and speaks to the strength of Carti’s curation. Artist development, revenue, and promotion are being maximized for Carti’s label off the strength of the brand he built. There’s a reason why XO and OVO don’t do label tours, their other artists don’t organically integrate or measure up to the label’s star. Would you rather see OVO on tour or Drake on tour with 21 Savage? Business is business.

YNW Melly’s Messages Show Tensions Existed Among YNW Collective

Every criminal case involving a rapper seems to move on rapper time, YNW Melly’s trial was cut short yesterday and postponed until Monday due to one of his lawyers falling sick. Before the court was adjourned, text messages between Melly and various people were read out, like a play, by Detective Mark Moretti and the prosecution.

The messages are tedious to keep up with, but the TLDR is as follows:

• Melly and Sakchaser seemed to have tension about their roles in the YNW collective

• Sakchaser claimed Melly was the face, but he was the CEO

• Sakchaser was upset with Melly’s mother because she was allegedly trying to position Melly as a star without YNW

• Melly said his mother’s actions weren’t a reflection of him and condemned her

• Melly texts his ex-gf, “I’m meant to be alone, I’m a monster. I’m evil.”

• Melly gets into an argument with his mother over text and disrespectfully calls her names

The defense objected to the messages between Melly and his mother, requesting a mistrial on the basis that Melly’s disrespectful language had tainted any mother’s perception of him in the jury. The motion was immediately denied.

Detective Moretti brought up the MELLY documentary, posted to Melly’s YouTube shortly after the murders. In the documentary, a message appears, “four days after the completion of this film. YNW Melly and his friends were the targets of a drive-by shooting in Miami, Flordia,” which contradicts Melly’s defense that he wasn’t in the car.

When court resumes on Monday, the state still has questions for Detective Moretti, and then the defense will begin cross-examination, which will no doubt be spicy as they try to discredit the hundreds of messages shown.

Context for those of you out touching grass

Surveillance footage from the night of the murders showed Melly getting into a car with Cortleon Henry, YNW Sakchaser, and YNW Juvy. A cell phone that is allegedly Melly’s was tracked to a radius that coincided with the crime scene, but the defense argued that the cell phone in question was communal, used by multiple people.

Testimony from producer Treveon Glass confirmed that Melly was at Fredo Bang’s house hours after the murders and in different clothes than he wore to the studio. No evidence has been presented that undoubtedly places Melly in the car during the murders.

Why this matters

The prosecution’s narrative seems to hinge on testimony from multiple people supporting their theory but not directly proving it. The messages give context to the state of affairs between Melly and people in his personal life before the murders but don’t clarify exactly what happened the night YNW Sakchaser and YNW Juvy were killed.

The defense’s objection to Melly’s character being assassinated in the eyes of female jurors, especially mothers, is valid. 9 out of the 12 “death qualified” jurors are female, and only 8 jurors are needed to recommend a death penalty sentence if Melly is convicted. The defense’s case will try to amend some unfavorable characteristics the prosecution has painted about Melly.

Fans Speculate That Lil Uzi Vert Hid Satanism in ‘Pink Tape’ Cover

If you’ve been on Pink Tape TikTok recently, everyone and their mother has a theory about the controversial and experimental album. Many fans zoomed in on the cover and highlighted that the stars on the American flag are an inverted pentagram—a symbol often associated with Satanism.

A similar symbol is in Uzi’s IG bio next to upside-down crosses, further fueling the conspiracy that Uzi believes in Satanism. TikTok u/khbg_yt had an interesting theory, pointing out that the stars on Uzi’s jacket are right side up, and the contrast may represent people’s perception of Uzi versus reality.

@khgb_yt

Lil Uzi Pink Tape cover meaning #liluzivert #liluzivert #liluzipinktape #pinktape #hiphop #foryou #trending

But if you know hip-hop, Uzi isn’t the first rapper to put the American Flag on their album cover. Outkast did it first for their 2000 album Stankonia which won multiple Grammys and is cemented as a part of hip-hop’s history. It may not be in your rotation, but it’s from the era of music that would have influenced Uzi.

André 3000 explained the meaning of Stankonia as, “This place I imagined where you can open yourself up and be free to express anything,” in an archive of The Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

Context for those of you out touching grass

In March, Lil Uzi Vert faced controversy for a line in an unreleased song that said, “I make a City Girl believe in satan,” performed at Rolling Loud. They addressed the lyric as not literal and more of a metaphor for making your girl do anything.

Last year, Quavo and Takeoff’s collab album, Only Built For Infinity Links, paid homage to Stankonia, crediting Outkast as an inspiration and adapting the flag visual on their cover.

Why this matters

The conspiracy theories are enticing when you’re doom-scrolling, but they’re just that—theories. Uzi leaning into the dark rockstar, tortured soul aesthetic doesn’t confirm their religion or motivations for creative decisions. They’ve spoken about their belief that everyone should be free to express themselves, which aligns with the Stankonia meaning, and it’s more likely that the inverted pentagram is an Outkast reference.

• Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kid Cudi scored nominations for the 2023 Emmy Awards. Projects about the late Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. were also honored with nominations.

• Diddy launches Empower Global, a marketplace inspired by Black Wall Street. The platform showcases Black-owned brands in beauty, fashion, and lifestyle and helps them reach a global audience.

• Issa Rae’s Raedio inks multi-year deal with Def Jam Recordings. The label will assist with signing, marketing, and distributing Raedio artists.

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