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Music

Trey Songz's 'Trigga' Album Cover Is a Brilliant Work of Art

Is he Christ or simply the letter T? We take a closer look...

Trey Songz has a new album coming out July 1 called Trigga (for those of you who have been living in some hinterland where radio waves and the dulcet tones of Trey Songz's ad libs don't reach, this is also Trey Songz's nickname for himself). This image, which you may have mistaken for a lost Renaissance painting or Cindy Sherman photograph, is the album's cover. As should be clear right away, it is ridiculous. But what might not be so clear are all the levels of complexity and metaphor happening on this. Allow us to break it down:

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1. Trey Songz is in a Christ-like pose. Does this mean that Trey Songz is Christ? Well, consider this: He says he invented sex, which raises the obvious question of how Trey Songz himself was born. The answer? Immaculate conception. Boom.

2. Trey Songz is in a diving pose because not only is he about to dive into that pool, he is, as always, about to dive into that pussy:

3. Trey Songz's Christ/diving pose is also a T, which is the T for Trigga, and, incidentally, the T for This Album Is Going To Rule.

4. Behind Trey Songz is a beautiful wilderness landscape. If we are to assume that this is Trey Songz's property, do you realize how much more impressive it makes it that the neighbors know his name? His closest neighbors are in, like, Montana.

5. One might assume that putting all of this inside a silhouette of Trey Songz's head is graphic design overkill, but that would be neglecting one of the messages he's offered about the album so far, from the single "SmartPhones," that there is a lot of dumb shit going on in our brains no matter how smart our phones are. As he told Mashable: "These phones are so smart in all that they do, that it's like they're an extension of our brain, but what they can't do is always prevent human error and human nature. The mistakes that we as humans make, the relationships that we make and we break, no amount of technology can save."

In other words, this is all of our brains, and Trey Songz is the martyr in the name of dumb shit in our brains. Notice that this backdrop appears to be the same one as in the "SmartPhones" video:

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6. The bowtie of Trigga in silhouette is a subtle semiotic device to show us that Trey Songz is growing up and maturing. For instance, here he is on a new song called "Change Your Mind" rapping kind of like Ma$e:

7. Notice how the word Trigga fans out in two directions? That's because there are two sides to Trey Songz. Even if he's dealing with mature themes and heartbreak on a song like "SmartPhones," he's not afraid to party. Need proof? Check out his new song "Foreign":

Are there more layers to this? We'll have to find out when Trigga is released. Until then, we can assume whatever Trey Songz is doing is probably going over our heads.

Kyle Kramer honestly thinks Trey Songz is wildly underrated. He's on Twitter - @KyleKramer

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