walking upstream…
Trippie Redd
photo: ralph arvesen · cc by 2.0 ↗Trippie Redd
Michael Lamar White IV came out of Canton, Ohio, and SoundCloud in equal measure, turning heartbreak balladry, screamed hooks, and Auto-Tuned melody into a single genre-agnostic mode on breakout tracks like "Love Scars." He has spent the years since refusing to specialize — swinging from mixtape sprawl (the "A Love Letter to You" series) to a full pop-punk detour with Travis Barker — treating rap, emo, and rock as the same well of feeling rather than separate lanes.
the sound in question
2016
Love ScarsTrippie Redd
walk the tributaries ↓
Lil Wayne2000s · Hip hop / Southern hip-hop / Trap
Wayne is the reason Trippie's flows bend around Auto-Tune instead of fighting it — the pitched-up, half-sung, half-mumbled delivery that let a rapper cry and boast in the same bar. Trippie has called Wayne his favorite artist and has talked about wanting to make his own "Dedication"-style remix tape in tribute.
listen: upstream & heresource: Trippie Redd on planning a Lil Wayne "Dedication"-style tribute mixtape ↗
2008
LollipopLil Wayne
2018
Taking A WalkTrippie Redd
listen forListen for the vocal line sliding between spoken cadence and sung melody without a clean break — that liquid, Auto-Tuned in-between space traces straight back to Wayne's mid-2000s mixtape run.
KISS1970s · Hard rock / Glam rock / Heavy metal
Trippie has singled out KISS's "Psycho Circus" as a favorite, and the band's arena-scale showmanship — a song built as spectacle first, hook second — shows up in the way Trippie foregrounds a riff-driven, larger-than-life hook over intricate rapping on his heaviest material.
listen: upstream & heresource: Music Connection Magazine (Feb 2020) — Trippie Redd names KISS's "Psycho Circus" his favorite song ↗
1998
Psycho CircusKISS
2021
Miss The RageTrippie Redd
listen forListen for the distorted, almost-metal guitar riff running underneath the hook — a KISS-style arena hook built for a crowd to shout back, retooled for trap.
Marilyn Manson1990s–2000s · Industrial metal / Industrial rock / Shock rock
Manson's theatrical menace and total commitment to genre-crossing gave Trippie a template for treating a song as a persona performance rather than bars over a beat. Asked about growing up in the same Ohio scene, Trippie said Manson "definitely left" a mark on him and that he still returns to his records.
listen: upstream & heresource: Clash Magazine — Trippie Redd on Canton, Ohio and Marilyn Manson ↗
1996
The Beautiful PeopleMarilyn Manson
2021
WITHOUT YOUTrippie Redd
listen forListen for the whiny, half-sung punk-rock vocal and the fact that Trippie commits fully to the rock sound instead of sampling it as a novelty — the same all-in theatricality Manson brought to blending shock rock and industrial.