Written Before Listen
Well…Looks like we meet again Trippie Redd. The last time I reviewed one of his albums was in early March when he came out with “NEON SHARK VS PEGASUS”. If you remember, I gave that album a 1/10. It was a terrible punk/rap crossover. This time around, He is back with a hip hop album with multiple features in the span of 17 tracks. With that being said, let’s see what this album has in store for us.
Production
If you have heard the album once, you know what I’m about to say, everything follows the same formula. Mainly the first 15 songs or so but every song has chiptune like synthesizers and Pi’erre Bourne-inspired drums. There was a TikTok that a friend of mine showed me that exampled this perfectly. If I find it, I’ll make it the meme at the end of this review. There are exceptions like “New Money” where the square synth gets replaced with something icier. The song “Rich MF” is a glistening piano trap banger with Polo G and Lil Durk and the final cut is a Detroit Trap track. Other than those tracks, every song has the same formula.
Features
Imagine if this album was just Trippie? It would be awful. Luckily, that isn’t the case. On “MP5” we have a very infectious SoFaygo verse that low-key makes me want to check him out. We have a Lil Uzi Vert feature on “Holy Smokes” and he also kills it. On an album like this, it’s common sense to have a Playboi Carti feature and this album has one on “Miss The Rage”. Playboi Carti also brings a fire verse too. In “Demon Time”, Ski Mask returns and is back to his old self with a very quick and quirky flow. It’s what Ski Mask is usually known for and I love it. The last two tracks have completely different features than what’s expected which is cool to see. On “Rich MF”, we have Polo G and Lil Durk over this hardcore trap beat that avoids this album’s formula and the Detroit Trap posse cut that wraps the album up. Alongside all of those features, we have pretty solid posthumous features on this. The song “Matt Hardy 999” has a posthumous Juice WRLD feature where Trippie and Juice WRLD both trade-off with funny, simplistic one-liners. On “Danny Phantom” we have a posthumous XXXTentacion verse and this is where my only problem occurs with the features. We’ve heard this song before just with a different beat. It’s the same hook and verse from the song “Ghost Busters”. Look it up. Overall, except for that X verse that we’ve already heard, I think the features are the best part of this album.
Artistic Evolution
Trippie Redd is not the most eclectic vocally, but stylistically he changes his style often. This is the same artist who just released a pop-punk album 6 months ago. Another thing, Trippie Redd in 9 months released three albums with all different styles. This time around, that repetition that everyone is talking about is still different from his usual aesthetic. I’m personally glad that he’s going in this direction because this album is better than what I’ve heard from him.
Influences
Despite being new to this style, he’s not the first to do this style. Except for a little bit of Drake and a little bit of Bladee, he is dragging along the style of Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, and Pierre Bourne. These are just tracks that could be added to a Spotify playlist called “INTERGALACTIC 🪐” that is monopolized by Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi.
Favorite Tracks
There are a few tracks that I was solid on, but there is one singular track that I loved. “Miss The Rage”. That is one of the best hip hop songs of the year without question. I liked the tracks that support it too such as “Holy Smokes”, “Super Cell”, “Supernatural” and “Demon Time”. I liked the features on those tracks, the production was nice and the flows are too. Also, Stylistically I respect the album. Trippie Redd brings a fairly inventive sound, but it doesn’t vary enough to be carried to future artists.
Verdict
Honestly, for an artist who I’m not big on, this album is pretty good. It doesn’t mean I enjoy it on an outer landscape. It’s still below average in my opinion. It’s just better than what I expected.
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