Uffie: "MCs Can Kiss"

Uffie is the anti-Lil Wayne. Whereas Dwayne Carter has in the last three years released his currently-definitive statements—Da Drought 3, Tha Carter 3, Dedication 3, No Ceilings, and now We Are Young Money and Rebirth (which is probably as bad or worse than you were expecting, though its being delayed another two months indicates that the thing, despite having leaked, is probably going to be further reworked)—Uffie has spent that time thankfully not releasing any music.

Her first full-length, Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans, sees release in February. Its first single, “MCs Can Kiss,” is the sound of a musician flaunting the fact that they don’t seem to care about anything, their music included, but that they’re more than pleased with having tricked a record-buying public (or some very confident A&R people) into bankrolling her non-career. “There’s two kinds of MCs out there / there’s the ones who rap and the ones who don’t care / and frankly I don’t give a fuck”—something readily apparent from just how awful her speak-rapping is, as she barely rhymes, largely ignores the Oizo beat (which Wayne probably could, but probably never will, murder, even now), and goes on at length to make her point: we’re supposedly to blame for having let her career happen.

“If I get popular, I know it ain’t fair.” “I’m a musical youth and I rule the nation / there’s something wrong with this generation.” Hers is the music of someone with no genuine interest in the medium, or in anything. She ends the song with a saxophone solo, and it’s a little like that first set of videos in which Wayne played guitar in public, but there’s nothing about it that’s jarring or even really fascinating like “Lollipop” first was when it was our only taste of the guy’s attempts to make R&B, sing with autotune, or play guitar. Uffie’s career to date is Rebirth and only Rebirth, or “Lollipop” without the rest of Tha Carter III: all indulgence and no punchlines. Whereas Wayne goes on at length about how hard he works, yet ends up playing bad-sounding electric guitar that he probably thinks sounds great, Uffie goes on at length about how little she does, likely threw the saxophone bit on at the end, and said “we’re done here.” It’s hard to find something truly necessary in something that sounds born so totally out of frivolity.