REVISIT: Trippie Redd's A Love Letter to You Series

Trippie Redd's career has been filled with ups and downs, both in music quality and outside the booth.  He's been known as a rising star for a while now and is just coming off an appearance on the 2018 XXL Freshman Issue.  In 2017, Trippie made some waves with his two projects titled A Love Letter to You and A Love Letter to You 2.  Since his debut studio album, Life's a Trip, is dropping tomorrow, I decided to go back to these mixtapes.

A Love Letter to You

As of right now, this is currently Trippie's best project and easily the better one in the series.  He shows off some great flows and establishes himself as a solid hookman.  The beats, mostly made by DJ Flippp and 12 Hunna, sound pretty crisp and clean.  Trippie actually showed that he has some solid lyrical prowess on the song "Can You Rap Like Me?"  And while it can be polarizing, I actually think his melodies can be kind of charming.  They sound much better than when I first listened to this anyway.  However, sometimes his melodies can sound annoying and shrieky.  There are also these random appearances from Trippie's friends who almost ruin some of these songs.  It's apparent that a lot of them cannot rap and should not be making music.  When he first released this, people thought that he was a clone of Lil Uzi Vert and I understand.  On this tape, there were points where I could barely tell them apart.  And while he has demonstrated to have some lyrical talent, some of his melodic verses are either too short, too repetitive, or both.  As much as I enjoy a good portion of this project, I think it's very inconsistent.

Singles

Love Scars [One of Trippie's best songs]

Romeo & Juliet [Meh]

No Smoke 1400 BC/Sauce - feat. Pachino [Hard enough to overlook the Pachino feature]
Stoves on 14th - feat. Black Jezzus [Hard enough to overlook the Black Jezuss feature]

Best Tracks

Deeply Scarred - feat. UnoTheActivist

Blade of Woe - feat. Famous Dex

Poles1469 - feat. 6ix9ine

Can You Rap Like Me?

Worst Track

Love Scars Pt. 2 / Rack City - feat. FOREVER ANTi PoP x Chris King

A Love Letter to You 2

This project was actually a downgrade from the predecessor.  I do think that his melodies improved a bit and that he sounds less like Lil Uzi Vert.  Also, Goose the Guru did a nice job on production throughout most of this project.  However, there's still a bunch of flaws.  We have more obscure features that no one wants and somehow they sound worse.  There are still points where the melodies sound grating.  It feels like there's not too much progression from the first tape.  A lot of the problems present in the first Love Letter carried over into the sequel.

Singles

Bust Down [Another one of my favorite Trippie songs]
In Too Deep [Took a few listens but it grew on me]

Woah Woah Woah - feat. Bali Baby [Sampling the Crash Woah meme was a bad idea.  This song aged like milk.]

I Know How to Self Destruct [Basically "Woah Woah Woah" in reverse and it's incredibly repetitive and mindless.  It's not good.]

Best Tracks

Today - feat. UnoTheActivist

Hellboy

Back Back Back

Overdose On L1fe

Worst Tracks

Deadman's Wonderland - feat. FOREVER ANTi PoP

Back of My Mind - feat. Cyndee with a C x Chris King