Pegasus

Diversity has long been the strength of Canton, Ohio, MC Trippie Redd’s catalog, and that doesn’t stop with his third studio album Pegasus. “It’s kind of like A Love Letter to You 4,” he tells Apple Music. “It takes you from place to place, as far as genre goes. The beginning is going to be love, and then the next half is like, ‘OK, we’re picking up the pace,’ we’re speeding up. And then by the end of it, you’re being brought back down because we turnt you to the max for like five songs.”

Pegasus plays out almost exactly the way Trippie describes, its early tracks utilizing well-established lotharios like PARTYNEXTDOOR (“Excitement”) and Chris Brown (“Mood”) to sing about mind-blowing sex and relationship problems, respectively. Trippie is vulnerable across the early portion, assuring a lover, “I just wanna be with you,” on “Moonlight,” and then promising, “Me and you can do anything,” on “So Stressed.” Things turn up slowly but surely, and roughly halfway through the album, we are treated to guest spots from some of Atlanta’s most in-demand feature MCs, including Young Thug (“Spaceships”), Future (“Never Change”), and Quavo (“No Honorable Mention”). Their features here aren’t exactly club bangers, but those looking for the turn-up are rewarded a little deeper into the project with “Red Beam,” “Sleepy Hollow,” and “Kid That Didd,” which features a second appearance from Future alongside his Freebandz label signee Doe Boy. The come-down arrives in the form of songs like “Don,” where he sings about what he's still willing to do to an opp; “Hell Rain,” where he describes how different he is from pretty much everyone else on earth; and then “Sun God,” where we’re assured how capable of a lover Trippie is.