''!'' (pronounced "Exclamation Mark") is the second

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American rapper

Trippie Redd Michael Lamar White II (born June 18, 1999), known professionally as Trippie Redd, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He is one of the most prominent members of the SoundCloud rap scene, which gained mainstream acclaim in the late ...

. It was released on August 9, 2019, by TenThousand Projects and

Caroline Records Caroline Records is a record label originally founded in 1973. Initially founded in the United Kingdom to showcase British progressive rock groups, the label ceased releasing titles in 1976, and then re-emerged in the United States in 1986. ...

. The album features appearances from

Diplo Thomas Wesley Pentz (born November 10, 1978), known professionally as Diplo, is an American DJ and music producer. He is the co-creator and lead member of the electronic dancehall music project Major Lazer, a member of the supergroup LSD with ...

, The Game, Lil Duke,

Lil Baby Dominique Armani Jones (born December 3, 1994), known professionally as Lil Baby, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He rose to mainstream fame in 2017 following the release of his mixtape ''Perfect Timing''. *Alt URL* * His deb ...

and Coi Leray. The album also originally featured

Playboi Carti Jordan Terrell Carter (born September 13, 1996), known professionally as Playboi Carti, is an American rapper. Carter was initially signed to local underground label Awful Records prior to signing with ASAP Mob's AWGE Label under Interscope R ...

, but was later removed from the album.

Background

In January 2019, Trippie Redd announced that he had two more projects to be released soon in an Instagram live stream, his second studio album, ''Immortal'' and ''Mobile Suit Pussy'', which was reportedly set to be his fourth commercial mixtape, but it then became scrapped. He explained that ''Immortal'' would have tracks where deep and romantic concepts are present, while ''Mobile Suit Pussy'' would have contained tracks that are "bangers". Later in March 2019 in another Instagram live stream, Redd stated that his second album had "shifted and changed" and was no longer titled ''Immortal''. He later revealed that the album would be titled ''!'', and inspired by collaborator

XXXTentacion Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy (January 23, 1998 – June 18, 2018), known professionally as XXXTentacion, was an American rapper and singer-songwriter. Though a controversial figure due to his widely publicized legal troubles, XXXTentacion ga ...

's'' ?'' album. Trippie released the lead single to the album "Under Enemy Arms" on May 29, 2019. He confirmed in an interview with

Zane Lowe Alexander Zane Reid Lowe (born 7 August 1973) is a New Zealand radio DJ, live DJ, record producer, and television presenter. After an early career in music creation, production and DJing, he moved to the UK in 1997. He came to prominence thro ...

Beats 1 Radio Apple Music 1, previously branded as Beats 1, is a 24/7 music radio station owned and operated by Apple Inc. It is accessible through iTunes or the Apple Music app on a computer, smartphone or tablet, smart speaker (such as the Apple HomePod), ...

that the album would be titled ''!'' and was already completed, but that he wanted to add several more features as well as videos.

Critical reception

''!'' was met with mixed reviews. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 59, which indicates "mixed or average reviews", based on 6 reviews. Rachel Aroesti of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' described the album as "compelling but contradictory emo-rap", noting lyrical contradictions and concluding it "is doubtless part of the genre's forward march – but it's hard to get past the sense that White has sacrificed a coherent artistic identity in the name of progress." Writing for ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'', Andy O'Connor wrote that the "songs touch on being true to oneself at all costs, but these half-baked lessons land flat since Redd himself doesn't really have an identity, musical or otherwise", further commenting, "Most of what happens here couldn't even realistically be considered rapping", calling the verses "dull and unimaginative on top of being restrictive in form" and "nonsense bars". O'Connor concluded that "the most enjoyable moments feel like controlled chaos. Redd ..does at least sound more composed. That's to his credit as a person but it's not to his advantage as an artist."

Commercial performance

The album debuted at number three on the US ''Billboard'' 200 with 51,000

album-equivalent unit The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditi ...

s, of which 7,000 were pure album sales in its first week.

Track listing

Credits adapted from

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple M ...

. Notes * "They Afraid of You" (featuring

) originally appeared on the album, but was later removed (including physical), and from all streaming platforms.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{Authority control 2019 albums Trippie Redd albums Albums produced by Wheezy Albums produced by Bobby Raps Albums produced by Diplo Albums produced by Murda Beatz Albums produced by Frank Dukes Albums produced by WondaGurl