Uzi’s got a brand new dance, you gotta move your muscle…
[Video]
[6.40]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: “Futsal” refers to a type of indoor soccer that’s played on a smaller field, “Shuffle” refers to the dance that Lil Uzi Vert is shamelessly trying to promote with this song, and “2020” is 2020. But awkward track name aside, it’s nice to hear Uzi just having fun, clearly enjoying himself, spitting nonsense words over a beat as erratic as he is. Tell me the samples of Tyler, the Creator at the beginning and Nardwuar at the end aren’t thrown in just to make you smile.
[9]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: The same ol’ post-Luv is Rage 2 rapping from Uzi, which is enough to keep the song going. He doesn’t make much of the beat, though: a dreamlike trance with some blaring gunshots. The soundbites from the Nardwuar interview seem like a last-minute attempt at injecting some fun, which gives the impression that “Futsal Shuffle 2020” is just something to tide people over until Eternal Atake.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: The main synth perpetually sounds one second away from turning into “Sandstorm,” which I assume gives this implied meme currency (if the associated dance and Tyler/Nardwuar samples didn’t already have “Futsal Shuffle” flush with viral cash). You certainly can’t accuse this of being overly chill. If anything, it overcompensates; there’s too much jittery energy, and aside from one second (you know which) it can’t stop skittering to start to bang.
[6]
Scott Mildenhall: Small-sided football is all good in theory — more tricks, more flicks! — but that intricacy is soon demolished by the force of stockier people hassling and harrying you, and your less tactful teammates chastising you until it feels like the walls are closing in. On a larger pitch there’s more time to look up, pick a pass, use the space, dribble, intercept, while still annoying people by feinting past the opposition unnecessarily. All of which is to say that the anti-loitering alarm synth, while at first an asset, becomes oppressive over time. Speed it up and you’re probably halfway to the end of “GhettoMusick,” a thought that makes a cheering distraction.
[6]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The most self-indulgent rap single I’ve heard since “Otis.” It’s three minutes of big audio irritants (that buzzsaw synth!) that Uzi uses as a bed for fanservice raps, sounding less like the moody goth rapper of Luv is Rage 2 and more like the meme of Lil Uzi Vert that has arisen on Twitter and Instagram. Here, Uzi is at his most extravagantly enjoyable, turning every line into a taunt-boast about his own style, his unique appeal. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: He proves his one-of-one status by making “Futsal Shuffle” work.
[8]
Crystal Leww: The highest compliment I can pay a song is Shazaming it on the dance floor, and at 3:50 a.m. on Saturday night, I knew that with that synth line that sounds like the best of Kanye’s Graduation days and a still-hot Lil Uzi Vert that I needed to keep this for my own records.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Considered docking this for the presence of my mortal enemy Nardwuar — he pops up right after Uzi talks about annoying some girl, which is appropriate. (The “gotta shoot two at her” line reminds me of a funnier joke.) All kinds of unforced errors here, maybe because that Eurodance riff and the dance took all his attention. Uzi gets to cruising speed at the end of the second verse, bursting through a bank and a tour bus before landing on his bed. He sounds content. Then the shots drop again.
[6]
Ryo Miyauchi: The seriousness in approach suggests Uzi considers this more than just a novelty track, but it’s also not nearly substantial enough to compare to his more lyrically adept one-offs. The flow feels athletic, keeping up a double-time drill in the spaces of the busy synths and busier footwork, but it doesn’t generate much content aside from cheese talk — literal and metaphorical. It’s more fun and endearing watching Uzi do the actual dance.
[5]
Alfred Soto: It’s not The Twist or the Harlem Shuffle or the Ostrich: the sequences blare too loudly. A few years after his debut, I get off on the off rhymes and surrealism. Just because nothing’s at stake doesn’t mean nothing matters.
[6]
Nortey Dowuona: Lil Uzi Vert has been training to do this for a while. Several singles have stalled out after a brief moment of being buoyed by his diehard fans, and now this hollowed-out bass ball of a beat that he’s juggling on both ashy ankles is going to be the winning goal that should finally get Generation Now to give him more playing time. The problem is, he’s not a tricks player, he’s supposed to be a striker. And he keeps not scoring.
[6]