A Love Letter to You 4
A Love Letter to You 4 is the fourth commercial mixtape by American rapper Trippie Redd. It is also the fourth installment in the A Love Letter to You mixtape series. It was released on November 22, 2019, by TenThousand Projects and Caroline Distribution. The project features guest appearances from Lil Mosey, Juice Wrld, YNW Melly, Chris King, Quan'ta, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Smokepurpp, Tory Lanez, DaBaby, Lil Yachty, Pi'erre Bourne, Youv Dee, Lil Wop, and Mariah the Scientist. The deluxe edition was released on February 21, 2020, featuring additional guest appearances from Chance the Rapper, Russ, Young Thug, Lil Tecca, Lil Durk, G Herbo, and SahBabii. Production was primarily handled by Pi'erre Bourne, Nick Mira, Taz Taylor, and Igor Mamet, among others.
A Love Letter to You 4 sees Trippie Redd delve further into hip hop and emo rap. One critic wrote: “Tireless and always emotionally charged, Trippie Redd's amalgamous approach to rap resulted in a web of trap beats, emo acoustic guitar lines, and lyrics sung in a tormented croon.” Another opined that, in view of Redd’s recent break-up with girlfriend Coi Leray, A Love Letter to You 4 is “about an unquantifiable catharsis”. The album was supported by five singles: “Love Me More”, “Death”, “Who Needs Love”, “Yell Oh” and “The Way”. The record project was a massive commercial success, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart with 104,000 first-week album-equivalent units. It was also well-received by critics, who highlighted the project’s sonic diversity. On October 8, 2020, A Love Letter to You 4 was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. On July 21, 2021, the mixtape’s certification was upgraded to Platinum. The 5-year anniversary edition of the album was released in November 2024.
Background
A Love Letter to You 4 was announced by Redd in an Instagram on from August 31, 2019. It serves as the fourth installment in the A Love Letter to You mixtape series. The project came into existence after Trippie Redd’s break-up with Coi Leray, and was released on November 22, 2019.On November 25, 2019, Trippie teased the deluxe edition of the mixtape, stating that it would include the previously released track “TR666” and the previously teased track “Hell Rain”, and two more new songs. However, neither of these tracks appeared on the officially released version; rather, they both appeared on Pegasus. The deluxe edition of A Love Letter to You 4 was released on February 21, 2020.
Songs
Overview
Of the project’s organisation, Redd stated in an interview with Lyrical Lemonade: “I studied the way I put all of my projects together and that’s how I came up with the concept for this album. To make it be one section about love, one section is alternative rock, one section is rap.” Redd also used memes in some of the songs on the project, and makes frequent reference to popular culture, and elements of his childhood.Standard edition
Tracks 1–7
The opening track, “Leray”, begins with a spoken-word message to his ex-girlfriend Coi Leray over an acoustic guitar instrumental. AllMusic described the song as “the scathing takedown of an ex”; similarly, Afterglow called it “practically a diss track to his ex-girlfriend”. The second track, “Who Needs Love”, was previewed by Trippie Redd in an Instagram post on September 1, 2019, one day after the album’s announcement. Thematically, the song concerns Redd’s desire to refrain from chasing love after his past relationships. In the third song, “Love Sick”, Redd asks his significant other to forget that he ever professed his love for her. Music Feeds described “Love Sick” as “throwback ’90s R&B – K-Ci & JoJo for the Bryson Tiller gen.” The album’s fourth song and lead single, “Love Me More”, details a relationship that Redd is unsatisfied with. Its refrain conveys his wish that his partner would love and appreciate him more. The song was originally due to appear on Internet Money’s B4 the Storm, but Taz Taylor gave the song back to Redd for A Love Letter to You 4. Niles West News described the sequence of tracks 2-4 as “showing denial, bargaining, and redirected hope.”On the fifth song, “Real Feel”, Redd says that outsiders' opinions don’t matter, and that his love remains unchanged. The next song, “This Ain’t That”, introduces the first feature of the mixtape in Lil Mosey. The song is also the first collaboration between Redd and Lil Mosey; they later collaborated on “Never Scared” from the latter’s second studio album Certified Hitmaker. Lyrically, the two rappers discuss their street credentials. AllMusic praised the song for its catchiness, whilst Music Feeds opined that “he track emits the same energy as vintage G-funk, its mellow yacht rock atmospherics belying darker themes.” Variety commended the “excellent Chopsquad DJ beat” and the “guest feature from Lil Mosey, whose ethereal verse stalks across the soundscape like a flamingo.” The eighth song, “6 Kiss”, is a collaboration between Redd, Juice Wrld and YNW Melly. The song features a slow-paced beat, and three verses from Juice Wrld, YNW Melly and Trippie Redd respectively. Towards the beginning of the track, a sample of an anime shine sound effect, used in various cartoons such as Naruto, is used. Lyrically, the artists discuss murder and savagery while making references to elements of popular culture including Twitter, Harry Potter, Coraline and Megamind. The song marks the first collaboration between Trippie Redd and YNW Melly. HotNewHipHop praised the song, writing, "This is one of the better songs from Redd's new album and, to be completely honest, it might be one of the smoothest cuts he's ever released." Likewise, Niles West News stated: “lthough the song is very explicit, the beat behind the song connects with the voices of all three artists very well, bringing out the harmonies in each verse.”
Tracks 8–15
The eighth track, “Til the End of Time”, continues the theme of love. It opens with a voice message from Molly McLachlan, the head of artist relations at Trippie Redd’s label 10K Projects. On the next song, “U Deserve It” – a collaboration between Redd, Quan'ta and Chris King – the artists focus on an unspecified girl that they feel indebted to. Redd had previewed a snippet of the track on his Instagram account on October 9, 2019, along with a caption that read “?ALLTY4”. The tenth song, “Hate Me”, Redd and YoungBoy Never Broke Again go back and forth and discuss fake love. The song was leaked in late September 2019 under the title “Blinded”. Towards the beginning of the track, there is a sample from the animated sitcom The Simpsons which serves as StolenCable’s producer tag.HipHopDX identified “Hate Me”, together with “Who Needs Love”, as songs exemplary of “Trippie’s mastery of the emo-inspired tones, remnants from the SoundCloud era of his career.” On the eleventh track, “All for Me”, Redd and Smokepurpp rap about love and loyalty. The song features vocals from XXXTentacion’s “Heart and Yours” vlog published in January 2018 on his YouTube channel before being deleted. Three weeks after the song’s initial release, it was re-released as a part of Smokepurpp’s album, Deadstar 2, missing the original XXXTentacion voice recording.The next song, “Sickening”, is the third collaboration between Trippie Redd and Tory Lanez, following "Ferris Wheel" and "Diamond Minds". Lyrically, the two rappers speak on themes of disease and violence.
File:Ted Geisel NYWTS.jpg|thumb|right|Redd named the thirteenth song on A Love Letter to You 4 after the Grinch, whose creator Dr. Seuss can here be seen working on How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in early 1957
“The Grinch”, the thirteenth song on the mixtape, sees Redd continually switch up his delivery over a bass-heavy Pi'erre Bourne instrumental. The beat was originally used by Kevin Gates on his August 2019 track “Double Dutch ”. Redd previewed a snippet of the song on November 3 2019, describing the record as “RAGE MUSIC”. The song is named after Dr. Seuss’s character the Grinch, the titular main protagonist of the 1957 children's book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! ''Music Feeds'' wrote: “Trippie rages on the industrial ‘The Grinch’, a Pi’erre Bourne instrumental.” The next song, “Death”, is a collaboration with DaBaby and serves as the mixtape’s second single. The song samples “Hit a Muthafucka” by Three 6 Mafia and is produced by DJ Paul and TWhy Xclusive; the former of whom is a member of Three 6 Mafia. On his collaboration with producer DJ Paul, Redd said: “I feel like I utilize a lot of older producers’ beats because they are nostalgic. I love nostalgia.... I was always observant of the older guys cause that’s what I grew up to. I would always see they did this and that and they made this many hits and all that, so I was like shit that’s somebody I wanna work with. So when I did, I got a platinum record.” The mixtape’s fifteenth song, “RMP”, is an initialism for ‘Richard Mille Plain’. In the song Redd primarily discusses this luxury watch.
Tracks 16–21
The sixteenth song, “M's”, sees Trippie Redd, Lil Yachty, and Pi'erre Bourne boast of their extravagant lifestyles. This song marks the first collaboration between Redd and Pi'erre as a vocalist, and the fifth official collaboration between Redd and Lil Yachty. The song came after “66”, “Who Run It ”, “Mood Swings” and “Forever World”. The song attracted much comment from reviewers. Ryan Feyre of RapReviews commended the song, writing: “Pi'erre Bourne’s whirlwind of hi-hats and xylophone is perfect for a frolic in the park with Lil Yachty and Trippie. These two can’t make a non-enjoyable song together.... I can’t think of a better musical duo under the age of 21; seriously.” Feyre also praised Redd’s outlandish lyricism on the song. By contrast, Kieran Press-Reynolds of Variety had a more mixed reaction towards the song, saying that it “sounds like the loopy lovechild of Dram’s “Broccoli” and 21 Savage’s “Bank Account”.” He added: “he lyrics reflect the beat’s cartoonishly absurd texture: “She bounce on that d–k / so I call that b—h Tigger,” Trippie chirrups cheerfully, referencing the very unsexy pogoing tiger from Winnie-the-Pooh.” The next song, “Bust Down Deux”, is the sequel to Bust Down. In the song, Redd raps the first verse and hooks whilst French rapper Youv Dee gives the second. In a July 2019 interview, Redd explained: “I did a song with , and it was so fire that I kept it for myself. And I’m about to do an other song for his tape.” Redd later previewed a snippet of the song on Instagram Live.In the seventeenth song, "The Jungle Book", Trippie Redd lets associate Lil Wop rap the first verse over a Murda Beatz instrumental. The song samples Kenji Kawai’s “Making of Cyborg”, the main theme from the anime Ghost in the Shell. In an Instagram post, Redd explained the reason for the song’s name: “the jungle book was my fav movie as a kid I made this song on my birthday and named it jungle book cause the beat was so jungle ish lol❤️ ”. The eighteenth song, “Chosen”, sees Redd make reference to Little Caesars, Wiz Khalifa and DeMar DeRozan over a Wheezy-produced beat. In the next song, “Abandoned”, Redd and Mariah the Scientist duet about lost love. The song marks the artists’ first collaboration together. Ryan Feyre of RapReviews wrote: “The album finishes off strong with a tender acoustic number featuring a stunning performance by Mariah the Scientist. Nothing like good ole’ tender Trippie Redd, am I right?” Discussing the twenty-first song, which is the final track of the standard edition, Feyre continued: “I personally prefer boom-bap Trippie on “Can You Rap Like Me, Pt. 2”, an ode to fans who’ve been with him since the beginning.” In this song, Redd sings the first verse and his associate Chris King delivers the second. The song is a sequel to “Can You Rap Like Me” from the first installment of the A Love Letter to You mixtape series, which is similarly produced. “Can You Rap Like Me, Pt. 2” is produced by P. Soul and Scott Theft, the former of whom also produced the Chris King–Trippie Redd collaboration “A Kouple More Bars”.