Written by: Allysa Gordon
Trippie Redd has given us something of an early Halloween treat of his own with the release of his third studio album, Pegasus, at the tail end of October 2020. Pegasus is the one of the most ambitious bodies of work the Ohio-born rapper has released to date, standing at a staggering 26 tracks long. The production of the album sounds exactly how the cover art looks, with spacey and celestial sounding beats backing Trippie’s signature vocals.
Pegasus boasts an impressive list of guest features ranging from PARTYNEXTDOOR and Sean Kingston to hip hop greats like Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne. Though the features are impressive, many of them seem out of place juxtaposed against Trippie. Sometimes, he even seems like a feature artist on his own song, which was the case in his collab with Chris Brown on the song “Mood”. However, songs like “Excitement” with PARTYNEXTDOOR and “Spaceships” with Young Thug provide an enjoyable mix of sounds and styles.
Trippie is known for his wide range of vocal inflections and energy, however, the rambunctious vocals from his Love Letter To You series that came to define his signature sound seem to be missing on Pegasus. Trippie adopts a more mellow tone for most of the album, which even comes off as sheer boredom on his part. There also seemed to be some brief cases of identity crisis throughout the album. Tracks like “Weeeeee” sound like a strange hybrid of Lil Uzi and Travis Scott, “Good Morning” features his best emulation of Playboi Carti’s iconic baby talk voice, and “Kid That Kidd” adopts a Bobby Shmurda-like cadence. “Kid That Kidd” also commits an egregious error of poor mixing and mastering as the hard driving bass drowns out all the artists’ vocals and tin-canny elements are present in Future and Doe Boy’s verses.
Overall, Pegasus’s biggest weakness is its sheer size. The stronger songs on the album can barely shine through the swarm of filler tracks surrounding it and, at many times, it almost feels like a chore to listen to. Sadly, Pegasus seems to crumble under the weight of its own gargantuan track list.
