As I said, this trailer greatly exceeded my expectations. I didn’t think it would be bad, but Uzi isn’t known for immense professionalism. While he is 25-years-old, everyone knows that he’s a 12-year-old at heart, in a good way — it’s what makes him so likable. So when it came to something as important as the release trailer for one of hip-hop's biggest albums in years, I was admittedly skeptical. But Gibson Hazard and Uzi crushed it. It had a good plotline and clearly catered towards the futuristic, spacey, mysterious vibe that is so heavily associated with the album. (The album cover makes much more sense now too, after seeing the trailer.) Maybe the best of all were the numerous easter eggs in the video. Things like allusions to the Heaven’s Gate cult, past songs, small teasers we’d previously seen, etc. were all seen throughout the reveal. It was clearly an ode to hardcore Uzi fans that have endured this long, long wait. So, let’s break them down, hopefully in chronological order.

Keys in space: pretty self-explanatory, these are the keys to Eternal Atake which were mentioned in the original cover two summers ago. Small, cool callback to that.

Uzi Planet: Behind the keys, we see the famous, colorful Uzi Planet which is featured in many of his covers and works.

Robed girls in the street: Uzi and Gibson found a cool way to tie in the girls from Uzi’s IG pictures. They represent the cult members of Heaven’s Gate, who all famously wore purple robes. They’re also looking up at the giant, cloudy keyhole above as the sky is parting. There is a flash of light, and they’re zapped away in an instant, showing they have been taken somewhere else.

Inside the office: There are multiple easter eggs in this scene, all with different relations and meanings.

Right away we are greeted with the words “Higher Source Insurance ‘Elevate Your Future’.” Higher Source was a web designing firm run by the members of Heaven’s Gate. Yes, while they were cult members, they also had full-time jobs. I’m not sure you get paid to commit suicide in group fashion.

After moving past the back wall, we hear Heaven’s Gate’s leader, Marshall Applewhite’s voice, saying “the Earth is being recycled, your only chance to leave, is with us.” Right as this happens, Uzi’s computer begins to malfunction, and error signs are displayed on his screen with the coordinates “27.1127° S, 109.3497° W.” (Hang around, these coordinates have a meaning.) He is predictably confused and frantically tries to get back control of his computer, in fear of losing all that hard work (in reality, his goofy ass was just typing out lyrics to Sanguine Paradise, another small easter egg.) He is unsuccessful in doing so, resulting in a black screen with big green letters “ETERNAL ATAKE” with a keyhole appearing on his screen.

He gets up from his chair as the office lights turn off, and heads to the printer where pages are flying out of the machine, all marked with the same coordinates he saw on his screen. He quickly gets in the elevator and we are finally greeted with Uzi’s entire outfit: a Prada suit with a small black tie, the one from the lone fit pic that is currently on his Instagram. It had a meaning the whole time. We all wondered why he archived all the robed girls and only left up the fit pic, and figured it was an admission of defeat; Eternal Atake would never be coming. In reality, it meant we were closer than ever to new music. He kept it unarchived as a small hint that we now realize was paying tribute to the reveal trailer. He had been planning this since October. Uzi, you sly dog.

Uzi leaves the building and gets in a beat-up Toyota with bad rims. We are slowly but surely catching on to the fact that this isn’t Uzi. This is Symere Woods, the normal dude who works a 9–5 job at a random insurance company.

He finally arrives at his destination (and for some reason he had to have a stunt double drive his car down a dirt road. We later found out that Uzi just didn’t want to be seen in such a beater lmao) and gets out of the car puzzled. He is on an island with miles of wheat fields and hills, but nothing else. Until the UFO crashes.

Uzi begins to approach the UFO doing some weird leg strut, almost as if being forcefully pulled towards the object. Just as this happens, we hear the sample from Travis Scott’s “Way Back,” which is also in the snippet, Price. Then, the UFO door opens.

Predictably, Uzi is yet again confused as all hell (something that is becoming a consistent trend throughout the trailer). Out from the smoldering wreck, crawls two of the robed girls. He and they stand together staring as the UFO explodes. We are rushed back through a chain of events, and back to Uzi’s desk where he is seen drawing oval shapes on a piece of paper — probably pictures of the UFO.

We are then flashed back to the present where Uzi is now… Uzi.

His face tattoos are back, he has a backward hat, looser fitting clothes, and enough jewelry to buy and sell me about four times over. In the background of the video, we begin to hear Futsal Shuffle and the robotic “Eternal Atake” as he and the collection of all the robed girls walk through the wheat field. Far away in the distance, we finally see what island he was brought to: Easter Island. There are multiple Easter Island statues, all basically identical. So finally, we get to another easter egg.

Easter Island and its statues: The Easter Island statues are very prevalent in a lot of Uzi’s recent work. They’re on the cover art, they’re in this video, they’re in the sneak preview we saw through his IG profile picture months ago. They’re everywhere. So here’s where things get tricky. Uzi is all about Pluto now, and Easter Island has a connection to it. Easter Island has another name, which is Rapa Nui. Within the Rapa Nui-ian civilization, they believe in a god by the name of Makemake. They believe he created all. Now, Makemake’s relation to Pluto is: they’re borderline copies of each other. They share many characteristics. They’re both dwarf planets that are two of the brightest objects in the solar system, and they orbit near each other. Ultimately, Uzi wanted to make some allusion to Easter Island and Pluto. (He also just wanted to be like a mini version of Future.)

Back to the video. After Uzi is changed back to Uzi, he is taken by a spaceship to a small worship circle with the robed girls. He is standing on top of another Easter Island head as some of the girls wave goodbye to him (which can be seen in the official cover art for EA). Then, we’re hit with a big easter egg. Uzi is beamed up into the spaceship with his arms spread wide. It is basically the exact same shot that was his IG profile picture months ago, which we all thought was going to be the official cover art. In reality, this was Uzi showing us a preview of the trailer. Another sly move by the small man. (It also very well could’ve been a cover art he was considering, but later nixed. Who knows.)

From the reveal trailer

His old IG profile picture

After Uzi is inside the UFO, the outer lights of the ship flash orange (possibly symbolizing the orange hair, Orenji, faze he had, but probably not). There’s also a small glimpse of purple, which could theoretically be an ode to his famous purple hair from 2016, but that seems like a big stretch, even in relation to this entire breakdown, which is possibly a big reach. I don’t know.

The video ends with the UFO darting off into deep space, leaving behind most of the robed girls. The words “LIL UZI VERT. ETERNAL ATAKE, THE ALBUM.” are etched on the screen in bright orange, followed by “DIRECTED BY GIBSON HAZARD + LIL UZI VERT.”

The video then ends. It seems like the wait is finally over everyone. Let’s rejoice.