S. Samuel
Memphis rapper Don Trip is putting his feelings on the notepad by releasing an open love letter to Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston's fictional 1990's "Friends" character Rachel Green.
In his letter, Trip expresses no shame confessing to the emotions Aniston’s character brought out of him.
Dear Rachel Green (Not Jennifer Aniston),
I’m probably the only rapper to admit that I have a real life crush on Rachel Green. That’s the only reason that I watch Friends, actually. I learned all the character names ’cause of you. I know them in alphabetical order. Rachel Green, you made me wanna be Ross in every episode when you were with Ross. And you made me wanna be Joey in those three episodes that you were with Joey. I wanted to be in Barbados and I wanted to be hidden in the closet. There’s some things about Rachel Green I won’t say in detail, but every episode, I think it was cold on set. I like that you did you hair more than a black woman. That’s always something special. Hair means a lot especially when it’s real hair. You wouldn’t have to work at the coffee house if you were my Rachel Green. Love, Don Trip (XXL Mag)
In 2010, Slaughterhouse’s Joell Ortiz penned a love letter record to actress Sanaa Lathan.
“I’ve been feeling like this for a while, I ain’t even gonna front,” he says on the intro. “This is my baby girl right here. If you only knew….You may not know this, but baby you’re my Brown Sugar, play me one-on-one, my hands gonna put a foul to you/I’ll let you score every basket ’til it’s all over/Love & Basketball made you more of an orange soda/You my Crush, sweeter than maple syrup, I got a chance to meet your dad while I was playing Europe…” (“Letter to Sanaa”)
Following Ortiz’s record, SOHH reached out to Slaughterhouse member Crooked I to see if he could help him find a real love.
“You know I’m on the West Coast with a lot of nice females, some beautiful mamis, so if they ever follow me into the lab, I might be like, ‘Yo.’ [laughs] I’m not mad at the alley-oop. I’ve never been a hater on that level,” Crooked told SOHH. “I’ve always been down with the alley-oops. Ortiz, man, he’s always on the down low like a ladies man. He does his thing. He don’t really need no help but if he’s looking for something out West, I’ll run the resume down and we’ll figure it out from there. He don’t need no help though. [laughs] Now him and Sanaa Lathan, that’s a good look. I know Sanaa, she listens to hip-hop every now and then. If she comes across this article, don’t sleep on Ortiz, Sanaa. Word up. [laughs]” (SOHH)
Don Trip is widely known for his popular “Letter to My Son” anthem.
The song is “Letter to My Son” and it is artful in its artlessness. The rhymes — unlike in Trip’s other best music — are not creative. They are mundane: a lot of “to/through/you/do/too.” But Trip — real name, improbably, Chris Wallace, which he shares not only with the Memphis Grizzlies general manager but with late rap legend Notorious B.I.G. — is speaking plainly here, from the wrong side of a contentious child-visitation battle. Addressing his son, Jaylen, then two-and-a-half-months old, Trip apologizes for his absence (“I don’t get to see you like I want to/I just want to let you know I want to”), lashes out at the mother (“To get back at me she knows she gotta use you … she don’t understand that this shit will bruise you too”), references potential court hearings, details steps taken to straighten up his own life and rectify the situation and finally howls: “I just want to see my child.” (Memphis Flyer)
Check out Don Trip’s “Letter to My Son” below:
