Steadily becoming one of the leaders rising to the top of the new class of alternative rock and pop punk-influenced emo rap artists, Trippie Redd’s debut studio album is a melancholy, raw project framed by Redd’s unique, strained and distressed vocal delivery. He references Lil Wayne’s music on the project, and he comes across here as the most obvious offspring of Wayne’s ill-conceived but undoubtedly influential 2010 rock album, Rebirth. Ultimately, Redd’s vocal delivery verges on painful to listen to, and his ridiculous lyricism and meandering, directionless moody emo-trap song structures greatly let down the novelty of the act that he is.
Trippie Redd is often lauded for his lack of Auto-Tune usage, unlike his contemporaries in the genre, simply presenting his raw, unfiltered vocals that supposedly better express the darker thoughts that pop up in the new landscape of hip-hop. This would be a perfectly appropriate comment if Redd’s vocals weren’t so hard to listen to – Redd seems to take this too far, straining his vocals and every so often extending a note too far with a garbled scream. Young Thug’s worst tendencies are right at home on this album, appearing on the track “Forever Ever”. The two each throw their voice around with reckless abandon, forgetting that a concrete musical rhythm and structure exists for a reason. The songs on the project that extend past the usual 2 or so minutes that most Soundcloud rapper adhere to feel completely self-indulgent, Redd repeating the same refrains without a hint of a memorable, catchy melody as he runs up and down the scales completely off-key.
It really does feel like all of these songs are freestyles at times, like he goes into the booth without an idea of what’s going to happen. The track “Bird Sh*t” sees him suddenly latching onto a single musical phrase in the middle of a verse and repeating it, seemingly just because it fit his liking in the moment regardless of how it worked with the rest of the song. Longer tracks “BANG!” and “How You Feel” are even more excruciating, Redd singing the entire chorus with his strained, yelling vocal on a song that extends to nearly 5 minutes on the former and sounding completely out of place on the guitar instrumental on the latter. It’s a few guitar chords that simply loop for 4 and a half minutes, accompanied by a higher-pitched wail in the background and Trippie repeating the title in his often pitchier higher register seemingly emulating a rock n roll frontman, occasionally breaking the cycle to offer a ridiculous lyrical simile or absurd melodramatic proclamation. Travis Scott-featuring single “Dark Knight Dummo” goes the other way, the beat a complete sensory overload that tries to do too much, and the only thing that could draw attention from the instrumental is of course the same strained vocal on top of all of the background mess.
Redd does attract some great collaborators to this project, and at times you can see some good songs hiding underneath all of the mess coming from Redd himself – the legendary Scott Storch lends a catchy, poppier instrumental to the track “Taking A Walk”, which is over too quickly and is let down by Redd’s vocals, for example. Sometimes, the good song is literally hiding underneath – Redd adds the Diplo collaboration “Wish” to the tracklist with a new “Trippie Mix”, after he expressed his disdain with the changes Diplo made to the song on his own project. Turns out, Diplo simply removed all of Redd’s terrible ideas and turned it into an enjoyable song. Redd reinserts a delayed echo affect that throws off the melody and some awful harmonized vocals completely out of sync with the rest of the song that left me shaking my head in disbelief at how passionately he felt about such incompetence.
Redd’s rap tracks do fare slightly better, especially “Oomps Revenge”, where he clears up his voice and raps over a great chopped up soul sample – he kind of sounds like Chance the Rapper. “Missing My Idols” had potential, but his apparent thought process that an obnoxious vocal delivery means clearer expression of self reappears even here and he loses the rhythm a bit in the second half of the song extending his words too far and raising his voice.
After pioneer XXXTENTACION’s death, I can only see this style continuing to grow and prosper – there’s evidently something about it that does succeed at drawing people in. Whatever it is, I personally have no idea how to relate to or understand it.
Favourite Tracks: Oomps Revenge, Taking A Walk
Least Favourite Track: Gore
Score: 2/10
Rap superstar Nicki Minaj continues to adapt and thrive, dropping her most rap-heavy album yet, Queen. Her fourth full-length project, we see Minaj raising her defenses a bit and reverting back to her classic hip-hop tactics of biting lyricism and an always surprisingly technically proficient flow. In a world quickly becoming more accommodating to the presence of more than one wildly successful female rapper (there are 4 of them in the Billboard Top 5 at the time of this posting), Minaj reminds us why she was regarded as such a powerful force to begin with. Despite the messy rollout that accompanied the project, the best tracks here are equal parts infectiously energetic and unflinchingly tough, the two sides that have always made up her appealing persona. At 19 tracks, not everything comes together and there’s certainly some filler and material that sounds slightly dated, but the highs are fantastic.
After taking a complete stylistic left turn on his previous album The Divine Feminine, Mac Miller returns two years later with a similar jazz-rap and funk sound that sees him singing more and taking the style even further into neo-soul territory. Dedicated to then-girlfriend Ariana Grande, Miller’s sudden metamorphosis from the goofy frat-rap persona into the soulful romantic on Divine produced his most enjoyable music yet. His fifth album, Swimming, finds Miller in recovery after having lost the inspiration for the sound that coloured his previous work in the wake of his public split from Grande. While the lyrical content of the project is very compelling – Miller trying to learn to rely on himself, rather than someone else, to mend the personal issues that contributed to the split, the music itself can often feel like a more subdued, less fun version of his previous album.
Travis Scott’s third album, ASTROWORLD, firmly cements himself in the pantheon of today’s rap superstars with a project where he does everything expected of him and then adds a little more creative flair on top. Of course, nobody is looking to Scott for a work of art, and he delivers fully on a fun and enjoyable summer rap album. While it may not be his best album yet, it’s certainly his most risky, and comes with a truly impressive selection of guests that elevate Scott’s performance to another level entirely. It’s definitely a huge step up from the mundane and disinterested Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight (2016), and it’s great to see what Scott can produce when he slows down his speedy release schedule for the first time.
I’m not sure anyone was quite ready for Denzel Curry’s TA13OO. The dark and aggressive hardcore rap artist’s third studio album takes a deep dive into the most tortured levels of his subconscious, dividing the project into three shorter acts – Light, Grey and Dark, which signify the degree to which he gives into and accepts the violence and hatred surrounding him, as well as his own personal paranoias and anxieties. Curry’s lyricism is top notch here, stringing together complex wordplay and extended metaphors that are only bolstered by the sheer force behind his delivery. His confusion and mood swings are additionally represented by his greatest show of versatility yet, mixing his trademark scream-rap style with some extravagant, soulful and jazzy material closer to the “Light” side. This is one of the most essential hip-hop albums of the year without a doubt.
Electronic musician RL Grime, fluent in the sounds of future bass, drum ‘n’ bass, and of course grime, defies most EDM artists’ approach to drop a well thought out and cohesive project rather than sporadic singles. Nova is his second full-length, following 2014’s Void, and runs through a high-energy and endlessly fun selection of different sounds and genres, recruiting a great selection of guests as well. Most of these tracks are shell-shockingly heavy with bass and other dominant, flaring synths, and puts RL Grime in a category all on his own by sheer virtue of his ability to craft these tailor-made party tracks that still include a selection of sounds so distinctive and distracting. The transitions and clear album structure, as well, make the usually taxing task of listening to an EDM album, almost an hour straight of one-note dance tracks, much more engaging – though at 15 songs it still does fall victim to a few pitfalls of almost every electronic full-length.
Pop-rock singer-songwriter Meg Myers’ sophomore album, Take Me To The Disco, sees the singer discover a middle ground between the upbeat, poppier melodic approach of her debut Sorry and the abrasive, almost grunge edge that coloured her earlier EPs. 4 years after her breakout single “Desire”, Myers still exists in her own lane as a completely unique artist and one of my personal favourite singers who is still moderately lesser-known, blending heavy guitar work and haunting, tortured rock vocal abilities with some aspects that could easily fit on pop radio. However, while still possessing the infectious qualities of songwriting and song structure that knows just how to highlight the greatest parts of her voice, Take Me To The Disco sounds more subdued than Myers ever should be. She never quite recaptures the snarl that accompanied her early delivery, or commits fully to the experimental, pop-oriented angle that appeared on Sorry. Still, Myers delivers another strong body of work.
R&B/funk collective The Internet, now on its 4th studio album after the disbanding of parent group Odd Future, unleashes the collection of subdued, effortlessly cool tracks Hive Mind. Their young producer Steve Lacy, already making hits with other big name artists like Kendrick Lamar, brings his multi-instrumentalist skill to the complex jazz-funk instrumentals here, while ex-Odd Future vocalists Syd and Matt Martians handle the mic, becoming stars in their own right after other members like Tyler The Creator, Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt’s successes. While the project does stand at a meandering 57 minutes, a few of these tracks getting too indulgent and disjointed for their own good, Syd’s captivating vocal work and Lacy’s production holds it together well.
Australian indie-pop singer Amy Shark, after rising to prominence with her contributions to the Love, Simon soundtrack, releases her debut album Love Monster. Shark takes some clear inspiration from other rising pop artists in her home country and neighbouring New Zealand, as well as some other megastars of the day, but manages to deliver a very strong debut due to her unique vocals and specific and personal lyrical content. A few superproducers hop on board for a single song each, but for the most part, this is one of the strongest debut projects of the year based solely on Shark’s own captivatingly refreshing presence as a newcomer to the music industry.
Not to be outdone by Drake’s smash hit Scorpion, Wiz Khalifa’s sixth studio album Rolling Papers 2 has arrived in the similar form of a 25-track album by a rapper who sounds like he’d rather be anywhere else most of the time, save for some infrequent bursts of the charm we’ve come to love from them in the past. Khalifa’s latest certainly falls victim to loading an album with filler to benefit in the streaming game, especially when Khalifa’s subject matter or delivery has never been the most varied, slowing most of these tracks down with his sluggish flow. Still, there are a surprising amount of hits here all the same – Khalifa stands out when he’s audibly having fun, bringing to mind the joys of his older material.
