Lil Uzi Vert's Maverick EP Dominates US Apple Music Charts on 31st Birthday

The eight-track drop, released on Uzi's 31st birthday (July 31), snatched the #1 slot on US Apple Music's Hip-Hop/Rap albums chart, pushing Drake's ICEMAN, Future's The Real Me, and Rylo Rodriguez's S.K.A.T.E. down the pecking order. It also parked at #2 on Apple Music's all-genre albums chart, trailing only Ariana Grande's petal. For an artist whose 2024 full-length Eternal Atake 2 left a chunk of the fanbase cold, this is the kind of oxygen Uzi desperately needed.

A Surprise Drop That Did Its Job

The rollout was classic Uzi chaos: missed Lollapalooza slot due to travel and weather, a Major Lazer set cameo to compensate, then — boom — eight tracks out of nowhere. No rollout calendar, no teaser campaign, just the drop. Per Kurrco's Instagram catch, the numbers spoke instantly. But here's the thing about surprise drops in 2026: the first-day spike is easy. The chart stays warm because the music connects, not because the algorithm blessed it. Early word from the timeline suggests this one lands — a return to the melodic, rage-adjacent pen game that built Uzi's cult in the first place. After Eternal Atake 2 felt like obligation rather than vision, "Almost Forever" reads like Uzi remembering why they got here.

The Tease Hiding in Plain Sight

The cover art dropped a breadcrumb fans latched onto immediately. Inside one of the kids' eyes on the artwork sits the text "Album after this" — a near-taunt aimed at a fanbase that's been waiting on a proper full-length since Pink Tape. Uzi projects carry a documented history of delays and pushbacks, so nobody's holding their breath yet. But the commercial signal here is loud: if an EP can outpace Drake, Future, and Rylo on day one, the full-length runway is wide open. Streaming algorithms reward momentum, and "Almost Forever" just delivered the kind of momentum that turns playlists into anticipation.

What I'm Watching

The real test isn't this week — it's the second and third week. ICEMAN is still eating heavy rotation, and one-week wonders don't shift label strategy. If "Maverick 'Almost Forever'" holds top-five on the rap chart into mid-August, the album announcement stops being a matter of if and starts being when. Uzi's pen game has always thrived on hunger, and right now that hunger reads real, with the streams backing it up. Whether that translates into a full-length matching the EP's energy — or another Eternal Atake 2 situation — that's the only question that matters.