Trippie Redd is a 21 year old rapper from Canton, Ohio who rose to prominence in off his first 2 mixtapes: A Love Letter to You & A Love Letter to You 2. His profile would continue to grow with projects like LIFE’S A TRIP & A Love Letter to You 3 however, the quality of his music wouldn’t begin to decline until the release of his sophomore album ! in 2019. Trippie followed it up by dropping A Love Letter to You 4 a few months later & it was a decent bounce back that gave me hope of him continuing to redeem himself. But then came the overloaded & painfully generic Pegasus this past fall, which is undoubtedly his worst body of work to date. Fast forward 3 months later, Trippie is attempting to crossover into rock territory for his 4th full-length album with the help of blink-182 drummer Travis Barker.
The album kicks off with “PILL BREAKER”, where Trippie teams up with blackbear & Machine Gun Kelly to talk about drugs over a trap beat with a faint electric guitar in the background. The next song “WITHOUT YOU” talks about going insane if this woman leaves him over a pop punk instrumental while the track “SWIMMING” lyrically is based on the famous Dory quote from Finding Nemo over a headbanging beat. The song “FEMALE SHARK” expresses Trippie’s desire to have a fearless woman in his life over a bass guitar & some live drumming while the track “GERONIMO” with Chino Moreno of all people sees the 2 talking about protecting their significant others over a heavy beat.
The song “SEA WORLD” talks about his love for his significant other lasting forever over a fast-tempo instrumental while the track “RED SKY” gets back with Machine Gun Kelly to talk about exes leaving them in the cold over an acoustic guitar & some drums. The song “MEGLADON” talks about being born to terrorize over a more hard rock instrumental while the track “SAVE YOURSELF” talks about fighting his demons & the riffs on here could very well be the best on the entire album.
The song “DREAMER” asks his girl what she was waiting for over a Yeezo Beats instrumental sampling the “Have You Ever Had a Dream Like This?” kid while the track. “IT’S COMING” talks about facing your fears & the instrumental sounds like early LINKIN PARK for God knows what reason. The song “LEADERS” talks about not being a believer when he was younger over a sample of the Deftones’ “Back to School (Mini Maggit)” while the penultimate track “FROZEN OCEAN” talks about feeling broken & hopeless & the instrumentation on here is somewhat a heavy version than what we heard on “LEADERS”. The album ends with “DEAD DESERT”, where Trippie enlists ZillaKami & Scarlxrd to talk about dropping dead over a filthy trap metal beat.
You can throw this album to the ever-growing pile of rappers attempting to go rock & failing miserably at it, because I did not care for it at all. Travis Barker’s production is really the saving grace of the entire thing, as Trippie Redd’s songwriting & vocals that make it VERY hard for me to sit through.
Score: 1.5/5
Legends Will Never Die 