Trippie Redd Essentials

Wielding moody melodies and soundscapes that oscillate between grunge and surrealistic trap, Trippie Redd is a defining voice of emo rap. Born Michael Lamar White IV in Canton, Ohio, in 1999, Trippie began attracting serious attention with his A Love Letter to You mixtape in 2017. By 2018, he had crystallised his come-up with his debut album, Life’s a Trip, which brims with emotive confessionals (“Taking a Walk”) and ecstatic chants (“Shake It Up”). Thematically, he swerves between tender love songs (“Topanga”) and melodic but raucous gunplay (“MAC 10” with Lil Baby and Lil Duke). While his tonal inflections call to mind 2000s pop punk (“Love Scars”), he grafts them onto production that sounds like video game soundtracks (“Dark Knight Dummo” with Travis Scott), an all-around aesthetic universe he helped normalise.