admin “Everybody” has all the makings of a party pleaser: high energy, an earworm of a sample, and deceptively simple lyrics, with Nicki and Uzi punching each line in on Junior Senior’s all-too-familiar mewl of “Everybody-y-y.” It’s the kind of song where a casual listener doesn’t need to know what the hell Nicki’s talking about to have fun, but the rest of us can appreciate the demented thrill of her spitting things like “We gon’ spin and kill (Everybody!)”—threatening drive-bys, by way of one of early-aughts club music’s most earnest feel-good hits.
Nicki and Uzi have only collaborated a handful of times, but their chemistry is undeniable. As Uzi told me this past summer, “There’s no missing when I make a song with her.” That track was “Endless Fashion” on Uzi’s album Pink Tape; it was the last song made for the album, spurred by Nicki hitting Uzi just days before its release. “Nicki hit me up like, ‘How you going to drop an album called Pink Tape and you know pink is my thing?’ I was like, Oh, no. You right. I’m going to send this over right now. And I sent it to her right there.”
Despite the success of “Just Wanna Rock,” Uzi chose not to revisit the Jersey Club lane until this new song now. “That’s really not my lane,” Uzi admitted to me. “There’s a lot of kids out here, that’s really their thing. It’s kids from Philly, people like 2Rare, D Sturdy, Brock, Bril, Lay Bankz, MCvertt—it’s just a bunch of them, and that’s what they do all day long. I already paid my homage to how I did my thing, but I would think it would be almost disrespectful to box them out when that’s what they do every day.”
“Everybody” is co-produced by one such stalwart, DJ Smallz 732, whose Junior Senior flip was first posted at least eight months ago. But it also shares production from Tate Kobang, who’s surprisingly PF2’s quiet secret weapon, with credits on four other songs. The Maryland rapper scored a modest hit back in 2015 with his Baltimore-bounce influenced track “Bank Rolls,” but never quite took off after. It’d be even more surprising if instead of just serving as Nicki’s grand return, this album somehow facilitated a resurgence for Tate, who always seemed more talented than his short run back then allowed.
He’s the last person one would’ve expected to be all over the Nicki Minaj comeback album, but Pink Friday 2 is full of zigzags. (I’m sorry, but the much heralded Drake and Nicki reunion should’ve prioritized BARS; instead we get Drake in full Turks mode, sigh.) We all need to sit with the album over the weekend, but on first impression, two things are clear: However the album stacks up against her others, or what’s out there now, Nicki silenced a lot of longstanding doubt. And “Everybody” is an undeniable jam. The winter just got a little warmer!
