by decenthumanbeing
Alright, that’s it, I’m just going to say it: fuck trippy red. Now I know this is not the hottest take in the world, but someone needed to say it. And I’m just talking about his music (although I am talking about his music in some way), I’m talking about how he pretty much stole Supa Bwe’s flow and sold a lower grade version to the mainstream.
Before I go any further let me give you some background on both of these artists. Supa Bwe is a 31-year-old rapper from Chicago who is responsible for classics such as “Up Right Now,” “LOOK,” and “Supa’s Sweater Song,” (just because you don’t know them doesn’t mean they aren’t classics it just means you are uncultured). He is also a member of the legendary music group Hurt Everybody who has released two albums: Hurt Everybody EP (2014) and 2K47(2015). The first of which features an intro and outro that will give you chills every time you listen. It also features one of the Tunes editor’s favorite songs, “In Seoul.” If you listen to this song you will quickly realize what makes Supa so special: his punk rock inspired, cathartic voice that brought us a generation of new music. He is also the kind of superhero that will beat up your favorite NFL player if they start disrespecting women in the club.
So who is Trippie Redd? He is the 21-year-old rapper from Canton Ohio who literally stole Supa Bwe’s sound, pitch for pitch, cadence for cadence. Trippie Redd, who is known for his rock-inspired rap and “psychedelic beats” has a fortune and a career out of what Supa Bwe created, and offered not even a word of homage in return. To see just how blatantly Trippie Redd is biting flows all you have to do is listen to the first twenty seconds of “Love Scars,” the first song of his debut album, and literally the first song on Supa Bwe’s SoundCloud, “Thot Goddess,” not to be confused with his song “Thot Goddess (Sailor Moon)” off his album Finally Dead. Despite how similar the songs sound, Supa Bwe released his song in 2014, when Trippie Redd was 15 years old, and Trippie Redd released his song in 2017.
Despite what you may think, this is not some hip-hop nerd conspiracy. Supa Bwe himself has spoken on this. In the previously mentioned, “Thot Goddess (Sailor Moon)” he raps “[They] stole my swag / I don’t even want it back.” If you go on to Genius and look at the annotation Supa Bwe explains the following:
“I’ve been making “Screamo/emo” rap for 10 years now. I’m literally 28, meaning that when I was 17/18 I was making music exactly the same way, so unless Trippie Redd was rapping/singing like that when he was 7/8 years old, the boy obviously biting.”
The problem is not that Trippie Redd simply sounds exactly like Supa Bwe. It’s great when an artist inspires a sound that can literally create full careers for other people who otherwise might not have had that avenue. But what about when the artist that started all that shit, an artist that was criticized for damn near a decade because his sound didn’t fit in, is never acknowledged by those he inspired? It’s not like they are asking for a check or a feature or literally anything but the respect they deserve for creating a lane for so many others to fulfill their dreams. In conclusion: fuck Trippie Redd everyone at the Water Tower listens to Supa Bwe.
Categories: November 17, 2020, tunes