Lil Uzi Vert has proven that having just a small group of hardcore fans can do wonders for your career…and your pockets.
In an interview with Trapital shared on Thursday (February 8), Spotify’s former Chief Economist Will Page broke down the revenue Uzi brought in from a tiny group of superfans – and the results were astounding.
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“In June or July of 2022, [Lil Uzi Vert] released an EP on SoundCloud,” Page explained, referring toRed & White. “I was interested in understanding in how his fan distribution changed during that couple of months during that release schedule. When you hear reports about, ‘Find your superfans on Spotify,’ you know how much those superfans are worth? They’re worth exactly the same as everyone else because the pro-rata model equalizes out the streams.
“And in the case of Lil Uzi Vert – in the first month under analysis, we saw that five percent of his fans were superfans and generated 50 percent of his revenue. Add in the marketing campaign, the release schedule, the big push to these superfans, what did he achieve in month two? Seven percent of those superfans generating 70 percent of his revenue.”
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He concluded: “Now that’s really important, and I mean this. I’m not exaggerating. It’s perhaps the first real mathematical description of fandom we’ve ever had.”
Watch the full clip below.
In other news, Lil Uzi Vert recently announced plans to remove the countless tattoos on their body.
During a December interview with Ryan Leuteritz for L.A. Weekly, the Philly rapper was asked which tattoo was their favorite.
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But in their response, they revealed they wanted to get them all removed to adopt a more clean-cut image.
“My favorite tattoo [is] none of them,” they said. “I’m trying to get them removed. All of them. I wanna go corporate.”
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Going “corporate” is the complete opposite to why Lil Uzi Vert decided to get face tattoos in the first place.
Speaking to The FADER in 2017, Uzi revealed they got their first face tat when they were homeless after their mom kicked them out the house for quitting their job at Bottom Dollar Food.
“I had a job for fucking four days,” they said. “I couldn’t do it. I’m not normal. I was in there just thinking, Why am I doing this?”
As a way for them to focus on his music career and not turn back, the rapper got “Faith” inscribed below their hairline.
“It was like, ‘If I get this face tattoo, I got to focus,’” they 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.”
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Many of Uzi’s face tats are Adinkra symbols from the Asante tribe of West Africa, which includes a small circular character under their left eye that means “God is king.”
Their many other tattoos include an upside down cross on their tongue, an oni mask piece on their chest and a samurai on their back.
