Do We Love Trippie Redd's "A Love Letter To You 4"?
Like clockwork, Trippie Redd is back with his second project of 2019 with the release of the fourth installment of his “A Love Letter To You” series. With “A Love Letter To You 4,” Trippie Redd looks to bounce back from subpar reviews to his last project “!” which was released in August of this year. Overall, on “!” we saw Trippie Redd try a smoother method with his vocals as well as a more positive approach with his lyrics that fans didn’t respond well to. Along with Trippie Redd’s experimentation with his vocals and content came an experiment with the features on his album as well. His songs with The Game and Playboi Carti on the project were clear misses, feeling like forced pairings further turning listeners off. With the rollout to “A Love Letter To You 4,” Trippie Redd, appears to have heard the critics with the release of his three singles leading up to the project’s release. “Love Me More,” “Death” featuring DaBaby and “Who Needs Love,” were the three singles dropped before the release of this 21 song, 59-minute project. Lil Mosey, Juice WRLD, YNW Melly, Chris King, Quan’ta, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Smokepurpp, Tory Lanez, DaBaby, Lil Yachty, Pi’erre Bourne, Youv Dee, Lil Wop, and Mariah the Scientist all appear across the 21 tracks of this project. Will this album be a strong closeout to Trippie Redd’s 2019? Let’s find out!
Categories
The songs on this album divided into three lanes that are prevalent throughout the project and scored on a 1.5 scale. (0 = trash, .5 = not for me, 1 = good, 1.5 = a standout)
Heartbroke Trippie
Trippie Redd cues the vibes with songs about love and heartbreak. The highlights of these songs are Trippie Redd’s vocals over slow calm acoustic guitar and bass beats.
• “Leray” (1)
• “Who Needs Love” (1)
• “Love Sick” (1)
• “Til The End of Time” (1)
• “U Deserve It” ft. Chris King & Quan’ta (1)
• “Abandoned” ft. Mariah the Scientist (1)
Cadence is a Trip
Trippie shows his versatility with his talent to switch his cadences at will over versatile beats that can change tempo and feel throughout each song.
• “Love Me More” (1)
• “Real Feel” (1)
• “This Ain’t That” ft. Lil Mosey (1)
• “6 Kiss” ft. Juice WRLD & YNW Melly (1)
• “Hate Me” ft. YoungBoy Never Broke Again (1)
• “All for Me” ft. Smokepurpp (1)
• “Sickening” ft. Tory Lanez (1)
• “M’s ft. Lil Yachty & Pi’erre Bourne (1)
• “Chosen” (1)
• “Can you Rap Like Me - Pt. 2” ft. Chris King (1)
Trappie Redd
Trippie Redd and friends flawlessly rip apart bass heavy trap beats.
• “The Grinch” (1)
• “Death” ft. DaBaby (1)
• “RMP” (1)
• “Bust Down Deux” ft. Youv Dee (1)
• “The Jungle Book” ft. Lil Wop (1)
Must Listen Songs
The concept of Must Listen songs are the songs that would give the best overview of the album as a whole. Songs that stand out for reasons to be described in the pending descriptions of the songs.
“Real Feel”
Track five on the fourth installment of “A Love Letter To You” is produced by Todd Pritchard & Angel Lopez. The beat is a rock trap hybrid, with the rock aspect coming from the presence of both an acoustic and electronic guitar and the trap aspect coming from the drum pattern. On the song, Trippie Redd sings about wanting a real feeling of love. Contrary to many songs on his last project, “!” Trippie Redd uses a lot of his yelling cadence throughout the song.
“Til The End of Time”
On the eighth track produced by Pearl Lion and KC Supreme, an acoustic guitar leads us into this upbeat pop like beat. The synthesizers, drum pattern, as well as the guitar, give the song a bright feel of a pop song. Trippie Redd compliments the pop-like vibe of the song with a smooth cadence for his vocals.
“The Grinch”
Produced by Pi’erre Bourne, track thirteen is a lagging bass-heavy beat that is perfect to mosh to. The lagging distorted bass with the signature Pi’erre Bourne drum pattern sets a feel, equivalent to songs like “Syphillis” by Juice WRLD or “NUKETOWN” by Ski Mask the Slump God featuring Juice WRLD. The key to executing beats like this properly is to yell on them. Trippie yells on the beat while mixing a smoother vocal component in the pre-hook, providing a nice contrast for the song.
“The Jungle Book” ft. Lil Wop
Track number eighteen on “A Love Letter To You 4” is a bass-driven beat produced by Murda Beatz. The Lil Wop feature works on to contrast Trippie Redd’s energy as Trippie Redd yells while Lil Wop uses a mumbling raspy like cadence. It all comes together to create one of the best trap songs on the project.
Final Review
“A Love Letter To You 4” satisfies each Trippie Redd fan, no matter the reason for their Trippie Redd fandom. If you like his ballads about heartbreak, his yelling cadence, or just his rapping, Trippie Redd has a lot of songs for you on this project. At the beginning of the project, Trippie Redd has a lot of songs that talk about heartbreak and feeling betrayed, which is what you expect from an “A Love Letter To You” project. However, towards the end, the project became a lot more trappy with the beat selections as well as the vibes on each song. At this point in his career, Trippie Redd’s sound and versatility have been established, meaning there isn’t as big of a need for him to experiment with his sound. For the most part, we didn’t learn anything about what Trippie Redd could do on this project. Instead, this project was used for Trippie Redd to bounce back from his previous project as well as return to his heartbroken roots. The production on this project was amazing with a mix of big names like Internet Money, Pi’erre Bourne, Murda Beatz, and Wheezy as well as a lot of lesser-known beatmakers as well. The Internet Money beats set the tone for the heartbreak vibe towards the beginning of the project with their use of acoustic guitar for the foundation of their beats, while Pi’erre Bourne brings his trap expertise to the backend of the project, including a seamless song transition from “RMP” to “M’s” featuring Pi’erre and Lil Yatchy. Also, a welcome return of the “I Love Trippie Redd” tag was featured on “6 Kiss” featuring Juice WRLD & YNW Melly and “Can You Rap Like Me – Pt. 2” featuring Chris King. The features on this project did their thing, but I would like to highlight what I thought was a weird, however strong feature from Youv Dee from France. It can be tricky putting rappers who speak different languages on songs, however on “Bust Down Deux” the method worked out quite well. Lil Mosey’s feature on “This Ain’t That” left a lot to be desired because his cadence didn’t have enough momentum behind it. “A Love Letter To You 4” has no skips in my opinion, which is a testament to the versatility of Trippie Redd.
Scoring
Raw Score: The number of good songs on a project versus the overall amount. Songs must have a 1 or above to be counted.
Quality Score: The total amount of points accumulated over the total amount of songs.
Playback value: The resonance an album is perceived to have if played again in full. Scale out of 5.
Raw Score: 21/21
Quality Score: 21/21
Playback Value: 5/5
Go out and listen to Trippie Redd’s “A Love Letter To You 4” wherever you listen to your music. Also, don’t forget to check out OldMilk’s Instagram page and Twitter (@Oldmilk_co) for more Hip-Hop Album Reviews, The DJ 500K Playlist, The OldMilk Radar and more! Don’t Know it? OldMilk Does!
