Uber is the new rap cliché.

If you press shuffle and listen to any of Skizzy Mars' tracks, there's a decent chance you'll hear him go off about Uber.

"Got the Uber on the way, she don't even have to know," he raps in the song "Do You There?" On "Time," he offers up the line: "I took her out for dinner, called the Uber. See it yet? Look at me and laugh, she say, 'You ain't copped the Bemer yet?'"

For Mars, born Myles Mills, Uber is synonymous with a lifestyle, just as Escalades once were for rap artists in the early 2000s. Mars still rides in luxury Cadillac cars to keep up what he calls his "top floor" brand — he just hails those rides using the Uber app.

"I’m so into Uber because I’m a young black male in Manhattan and the yellow cab system proved to be invalid for me. A lot of people don’t like stopping for me. They don’t think I’m gonna tip them well,"  "When Uber came around, it was like, bitch, you can’t not stop for me... Honestly like more than 100% of my friends use Uber."

Uber may not quite be "everywhere" in rap, but the brand is now mentioned in lyrics more frequently than Escalade and Cadillac, according to data pulled from Genius, an online annotation service for lyrics and other content. It still falls behind references to Bentley and Benz, but the gap looks to be narrowing. (Lyft, Uber's chief rival, is far behind.)

The rise of Uber in rap lyrics is yet another clear sign of the startling cultural reach of a company that didn't exist six years ago. The company is a fixture of American conversation spanning politicians in Washington D.C., hungry capitalists in New York and entertainers in Hollywood. The service is a key plot point in TV shows like The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, in which the main character becomes an Uber driver, and it's mentioned often in Silicon Valley.

"It's a part of American life right now," Mars says, "just as much as Twitter and Instagram is." That cultural relevance only reinforces its position as a leader in a competitive multi-billion-dollar market.

Rap artists, always eager to stay positioned at the cultural vanguard and attach themselves to trendy brands, have latched onto the Uber brand with particular gusto.

"Hip-hop is about what's new and what's hot. And Uber is new and hot," says Bakari Kitwana, author of The Hip-Hop Generation. "The Escalade is no longer in vogue."

The extra cultural cache has the potential to boost Uber's brand power among millions of listeners, just as tech companies like Apple benefit from having its products mentioned in songs by Usher and featured regularly on The Tonight Show. 

One source close to Uber said the mentions in rap songs have been purely "organic," meaning the company is not paying for placement. Others doubt that. "I will be shocked if somebody hasn’t gotten paid for this," Kitwana says. 

Mars, for his part, says he has had conversations with Uber about giving away rides to fans and "shouting them out" on social media, but not about mentioning them in his lyrics.

"We love how much a part of the culture Uber has become across film and music and look forward to seeing more," a spokesperson for Uber said in a statement. 

"Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't," Shea Serrano, author of The Rap Year Book, says about the rap world's attempts to keep up with "what's happening in the real world," through references like Uber.

Uber may welcome the chance to be mentioned by big name artists like Drake, but the context can be questionable for a brand trying to cater to everyone from single professionals to families.

The Uber brand is typically used in rap as short-hand for impetuous, lustful men looking to race to or from the girl of the moment. Uber, a quick ride available at the tap of a button, almost seems synonymous with the fleeting nature of the relationships — both romantic and otherwise — in these songs. 

"Riding down the street, I hit the switch if I'm too drunk / Call an Uber for the night, your broad with me." - Uber Driver, by Wiz Khalifa

"I need a minute, cold water to the face / I couldn't finish, got the Uber from her place." - The Worst Guys, by Childish Gambino

"Bout to call your ass a Uber, I got somewhere to be." - Energy, by Drake

 Kitwana hears something else in these references: a shift away from the purely aspirational lifestyle rap has long championed in its lyrics, which he pins in part to the mixed post-recession economy.

"There is a vast difference between an aspirational culture that's talking about Escalades and the austerity culture that's talking about Uber," he says. "You are showing a new kind of hipness, but unlike the earlier aspirational culture hip-hop, it's more the artist following where the people are, as opposed to the artist leading the people to a place."

While hailing an Uber may not be as luxurious or elite as riding around in a Bentley, artists like Mars say they can stay true to the aspirational lifestyle even if it comes in the form of a car hailed through an app.

"The style for me is just pulling up in a situation where I look as swag as possible. When I pull up to an event that matters, I want to pull up in the most fashionable way possible," he says. "That's not going to be a Prius. I don't want to denigrate Uber X [but] it's Uber Black, Uber Select, Uber VIP. Aesthetically it fits my brand. We want to go for top floor things."

Additional reporting and hip-hop guidance contributed by Jason "H-Town" Abbruzzese, Christina "A-Town" Warren and Emily "West Coast" Blake.