walking upstream…
Trippie Redd
photo: ralph arvesen · cc by 2.0 ↗Trippie Redd
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Trippie Redd grew up on 14th Street in Canton, Ohio, where his mother's rotation of Ashanti, Beyoncé, and Tupac collided with the rap ambitions of his older brother, who performed as Dirty Redd before dying in a 2014 car accident. Redd broke out in 2016 with "Love Scars," a one-take, screamed confession he later called "screamo shit" — a phrase that doubles as a mission statement. Where most rappers pick a lane, Redd built a career out of refusing to, mixing trap hooks with pop-punk melody and shock-rock theater on the same track, sometimes in the same bar. By 2020 that impulse produced a full rock detour, Neon Shark, cut with blink-182's Travis Barker. For Redd, rap was never a separate language from the rock and metal he grew up on — just another way to sing through the same wound.
the sound in question
2016
Love ScarsTrippie Redd
walk the tributaries ↓
Lil Wayne2000s–10s · Southern hip hop / Trap / Pop rap
Trippie has called Lil Wayne his favorite artist outright, and the debt is about method as much as admiration. "I really look up to Lil Wayne, and he's always just said what was on his mind at the moment," he told Music Connection. "Nothing I've ever done has been written. I'm just spitting from my head." He's floated making his own "Dedication"-style remix tape in tribute to Wayne's mixtape run, and Wayne has returned the favor with guest verses on Trippie's own records, including 2023's "I'm Mad at Me."
listen: upstream & here
2008
LollipopLil Wayne
2018
Taking A WalkTrippie Redd
listen forPlay the phrasing, not the words: on "Lollipop," Wayne lets Auto-Tune blur the line between singing and talking, riding a rubbery, half-mumbled melody instead of a fixed rap cadence. "Taking a Walk" does the same trick a decade later — Trippie's vocal drifts and slurs through the hook rather than landing squarely on the beat. No sample or interpolation connects the two records; what carries over is the vocal-as-instrument approach Trippie names Wayne for directly.
KISS1970s · Hard rock / Glam rock / Heavy metal
Asked point-blank whether KISS's characters shaped his own stage persona, Trippie didn't hedge: "I love KISS. 'Psycho Circus' is my favorite song by them. They actually wanted to meet me. I've been influenced by them for sure." He'd already told XXL the appeal was as much visual as musical — their image stuck with him before the songs fully did — and it shows in how far he pushes his own tours toward spectacle, forest sets and confetti included.
listen: upstream & here
1998
Psycho CircusKISS
2021
Miss The RageTrippie Redd
listen forNo sample or interpolation links "Miss the Rage" to any KISS record — the tie is structural, not sonic theft. The title track "Psycho Circus" builds around a distorted, arena-scaled riff meant to be shouted back by a crowd. "Miss the Rage" does the same job with trap tools: a hook engineered as a chant, sized for a room rather than built for a verse-by-verse showcase.
Marilyn Manson1990s–2000s · Industrial metal / Industrial rock / Shock rock
Manson is Canton's other famous export, and Trippie treats the shared hometown as a kind of permission slip. Asked about the city's dead-end reputation, he pushed back: "Marilyn Manson definitely left!" he said. "I always thought he was fire. I still listen to his projects." What Trippie takes from Manson isn't a specific sound so much as a posture — total, theatrical commitment to a persona rather than bars over a beat, the idea that a song can perform a whole identity.
listen: upstream & here
1996
The Beautiful PeopleMarilyn Manson
2021
WITHOUT YOUTrippie Redd
listen forNo confirmed sample ties a Trippie Redd song to a Manson record — the connection is in commitment, not tape. "The Beautiful People" rides a sneering, half-sung snarl over grinding industrial guitar, treating the voice as pure aggression. "WITHOUT YOU" borrows that same all-in distortion: Trippie doesn't sample the shock-rock sound so much as fully inhabit it, the way Manson never winked at his own theatrics.