Written by Matt Slocum
Trippie Redd is hands down one of the most unique artists in hip hop. Due to the amount of music he’s already released and how long he’s been around, people forget that Trippie is only 22 years old. Due to some underwhelming releases in the last year, the hip hop community seem to not really fuck with Trippie as much. However personally, I’ve always been a huge fan and I think he’s a top tier artist. I like his style, the energy he comes with, the catchiness of his songs, his production, and the variety of music he can make.
With releases like LIFE’S A TRIP and the A LOVE LETTER TO YOU series 1-4, he’s had some great moments and some huge songs over the last few years. He released his album Pegasus last year, and then earlier this year he dropped a rock album called Pegasus: Neon Shark Vs Pegasus. A lot of people called Trippie ‘trash’ after these releases and it really put a lot of people off his music, but I think both albums are underrated. If you go back and listen, they’re really good. Both projects were met with mixed reviews, but didn’t gain that much attention. The main criticism’s apart from the lack of rapping was the length. They were too long for most people’s liking and admittedly there were songs that probably didn’t need to be there. I personally liked Pegasus and Neon Shark despite the public perception (or lack of).
In May, he finally dropped the lead single ‘Miss The Rage’ featuring Playboi Carti after teasing fans with the beat for years. He followed this up by ‘Holy Smokes’ featuring Lil Uzi Vert in July. A few weeks later he dropped the tracklist and later that week he dropped the album. There are a lot of guest features on this album other than Uzi or Carti such as Drake and the late legends Juice WRLD and XXXTENTACTION.
TRIP AT KNIGHT was a solid return for Trippie. It has a dark/upbeat aesthetic mixed with a sound I don’t really know how to describe. Trippie comes on it energetic and melodic and blends in with every beat, which was refreshing to hear. A lot of the past criticism from his past few albums was the length. Trippie reverted to a similar formula for his best work, with this album being 17 songs over 49 minutes, which is perfect.
On this album, he really focuses on one sound as opposed to showing off his versatility, which I think is good, but I did miss Trippie’s other attributes that he chose not to showcase. By sticking to one sound, the album felt a lot more cohesive, and each track fitted well. Most of the songs went straight into my playlist, they’re all likeable tracks that I’ve been bumping a lot recently. I think this album was a completely different Trippie and considering the lack of hip hop Trippie we’ve had recently, TRIP AT KNIGHT should age well. This project has a lot of good moments, he uses the features well, and the transition to Drake’s verse on Betrayal is one of the smoothest things I’ve ever heard. There are for sure a lot of positives from this album. Trippie is so versatile, and he can easily deliver you different styles while holding onto the aesthetic of the album. It would have been nice to see more of this on TRIP AT KNIGHT, but I think he did a good job at focusing on one sound and being consistent with the vibe he was aiming for.
Overall, I’d say this album is classic Trippie, but it’s not his best work ever, but it’s very enjoyable and easily his best project in the last 2-3 years. My favourite songs were ‘MP5’ featuring SoFaygo, ‘Rich MF’ featuring Lil Durk & Polo G and ‘iPhone’. I’ve said it for so long, Trippie is one of the best artists out there, the skies the limit for him. He can give you a pop hit, a rock anthem, a great RnB song, a trap hit with some melodies or that 90’s New York rap shit. I think it’s likely that his next release could potentially be something along the lines of a ‘LIFE’S A TRIP 2’, following up from his best album, reverting to being more versatile with multiple genres on the same project.