Hey, everyone. Music reviewer here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Sexyy Red mixtape, In Sexyy We Trust. Sexyy Red is a St. Louis rapper. She has become quite the polarizing figure in hip hop over the past year or so. Turning heads, but also the stomachs of rap snobs with tracks such as "Pound Town". She's basically continued to strike while the iron is hot as her fame has risen quite intensely. We had Hood Hottest Princess, and then the deluxe edition of that project, which essentially added a whole another album onto that project, which I reviewed and liked and you guys have been completely up my butt about enjoying that like total psychos.

And now she's built things up with this new mixtape, which is raw, wild, and insane, because if there's anything up until this point that has been a defining characteristic for Sexyy Red, it's just how uninhibited she is in terms of her flows, her performance, how she presents herself. She really, truly is up on the peak of Mount Don't Give A Fuck. No one out there right now is currently not giving an F on the level that Sexyy Red is. And through her songs, through her music videos, through her social media antics, she just has this knack for playing with the audience and getting a rise out of them and getting them also to think that she's not as self-aware as she is.

I wouldn't say it's an act, and I wouldn't say it's inauthentic, but what it is, is Sexyy Red fully and completely understands what it is about her persona and what she does that just seems to drive some people absolutely fucking insane. These sad mid-tier idiot dudes who essentially take the bait from Sexyy Red and look down on her, react to her with disdain, when she's literally yukking it up and being ridiculous and being outlandish on purpose. And what's funny is she's just mega polarizing, but simultaneously, crazy entertaining, can write very catchy tracks, has a lot of personality, a lot of character, a really sharp sense of humor, too. How many tracks ago did she tell you she is the female Gucci Mane? She very obviously borrows from the likes of Waka Flocka Flame. She is cut from that cloth creatively.

And going into this tape, I was worried a little bit because there's a history of artists that come up on this wave of very hard, banger-type tracks, super ignorant, super in your face. It's existing in this bubble of innocence before, obviously, like fame gets to it and there's a million eyes watching it, and it's after that point that the artist in question cleans up their act, finds a way to present what they're doing in a way that's slicker, more commercial, more presentable. And yeah, as much as I enjoyed Hood Hottest Princess, I did worry that eventually that would happen to Sexyy Red's music, but if this mixtape is anything, it's an assurance that she has no interest in doing that whatsoever. Because what she's doing here with this tape is giving us a very raw, messy, sloppy, lopsided, weird, DatPiff-era style mixtape where it's not the best, and there are some parts that are super repetitive, that are underproduced, that are underwritten, for sure. But it is definitely the most unhinged she's been so far on any project, any set of tracks, which it's just incredible that she's able to keep that energy up because that's a difficult thing to maintain.

I really do commend Sexyy Red in a way for staying shocking, staying weird, staying outlandish on this new set of tracks. We have "She's Back", which is a great, fantastic intro, banger cut. Great beat, great flows, super catchy, this one's high energy. It sets the tone very well. Following this, though, "Boss Me Up", I feel like this one's a lot more repetitive in a way that diminishes the quality of the song. And on top of it, her flow feels like a lesser version of Megan Thee Stallion's "Girls in the Hood". Not too crazy about that. And then after this, we have the Drake track that everybody's been talking about recently because he raps over the "BBL Drizzy" beat or some variation of it. And yeah, it's corny, but honestly, Sexyy Red does save it a little bit with these horrendously out of tune and ridiculous vocal harmonies that are clearly sung bad on purpose. It just becomes so over the top, so campy, just so mutant and weird chorus line. The sentiment is sweet, but the sound is sour. I swear to you that there are dying cats that are more on pitch than Sexyy Red is on this track.

After this, though, there is this amazing run of bangers on the tape that I think really make the project. "Ova Bad", hard-hitting anthem about just being sexy, being attractive, being wanted. There's also "Get It Sexyy", which is the big single from the project that I wasn't really crazy about when I first heard it, but the more that I listened to it in the context of the tape, it is super melodic. It is super anthemic. I do think it is one of the stronger tracks here. Plus, I think since the release of it as a single, the whole effort she's put into developing a dance and a bit of a viral thing around the song and the single is cute. Again, seeing her crossover with the likes of Soulja Boy in the midst of all of that does even more to illustrate the lineage of influences that are going into her music right now. But with that being said, what's so interesting about a lot of those artists that Sexyy Red is borrowing from is that when they all initially hit upon the scene with their big singles and everything, they were widely and insanely hated.

It's just so funny how much history repeats itself in that way. Even though Sexyy Red is literally doing everything that she can to illustrate these connections and these patterns, people are still looking at what she does on a surface level and just being like, "Oh my God, this is garbage! This is the worst thing I've heard in my life!" But moving on from there, we have "Fake Jammin", which is an interesting, very rhythmic trunk knocker-type track where there's no synths or anything filling out the space between Sexyy's vocals and the drums. There's a lot of bass, but it's mostly just rhythms and flows, and it feels almost like a late 80s, early 90s sound system, car-in-parking-lot-type hard-hitting cut. There's "Outside" as well, which I think is an incredible track. This one is the most over-the-top and outlandish on the project. A bit of an old-school electro groove on the instrumental, too, and Sexyy doing these totally out there sexual moans on the course. It sounds insane.

Again, incredible run with this chunk of tracks, but I think after this, the tape begins to drop off a little bit. No idea what the hell this VonOff1700 feature is on the back end of "Sexyy Love Money". He's really doing like a book-on-tape on top of the beat. It does not sound great, but the song, even before that, is a tad bit too repetitive, too. "Sport" has potential, but it's really just too short to leave an impact. "TTG (Go)", it seems like a bit too obvious of a reference point to my ears, while I do understand that Sexyy does love her musical and her Southern hip hop reference points and stuff like that. To me, this one feels a little too on the nose and a little bit too much living in the shadow of tracks that came before it doing pretty much the same thing. "Lick Me" featuring Lil Baby is just so not sexy at all, not even in a funny way. In no way is this track appealing to me. Not only is the Lil Baby feature not sensual, not interesting, but on top of it, Sexyy's hook on here is weak, and I think her vocal mix is scuffed. Those weird plinky keyboards in the instrumental sound like a mess. Nothing about this track is coalescing, nothing about it is coming together.

However, "Awesome Jawsome" is maybe my favorite track here, like the greatest munch anthem of all time, point blank, period, with the raunchiest, nastiest, most out there details you've heard on any song in this vein of this style. Literally like getting down to blood, like face full of blood. Only someone like Sexyy Red, I think, could pull this type of track off, and she does it very well. And the closing track, "It's My Birthday". I like the theme, I like conceptually what it's going for. I just think it's one of the more repetitive tracks here. It's just okay.

But overall, I like this tape a bit. It's okay. Some of my favorite Sexyy bangers so far land on this project, and even some of the worst moments, like the one with Drake, while I wasn't enjoying it, I could at least laugh at it and catch on to the humor Sexyy Red is intentionally working into the track. I do appreciate her going for a very wild, messy, chaotic, early 2010s style mixtape on that one. But with heading in that territory, of course, also there are some tracks that are just too messy, too sloppy, just too half baked. The biggest Achilles heel of the album is that the final run of tracks, like the last handful of songs on the record, just don't hit nearly as hard as the songs that land around the midpoint, kick the project off. It really does lose steam after a bit. But again, for the most part, this mixtape was eventful, it was interesting, it was funny. It was Sexyy Red all the way.

Feeling a strong six on it.

Anthony Fantano. Sexyy Red. In Sexyy We Trust. Forever.