Travis Scott's third album, ASTROWORLD, is #PeakTravisScott. Most significantly, it's the masterpiece he's long promised – and hyped.
Like his mentor Kanye West, who extols imagination and individualism over mundane skills, Scott (aka Jacques Webster) represents a different kind of hip hop artist. He is a rapper, singer, producer, auteur and trendsetter. The new post-rappers don't battle their peers for credibility. Instead, they develop ever more extravagant concept projects.
This year alone, Harlem's A$AP Rocky unveiled the alternately grungy and shoegazey TESTING, while Florida's Denzel Curry just delivered TA13OO. Increasingly, such creatives repudiate the very term 'rapper', as Scott told Numero Homme in 2017. "What the fuck is a rapper?… Me, I sing, I rap, I do beats, I sometimes make videos. Labels piss me off." Following Yeezy, the Texan may have actually transcended hip hop.
The ascent of art-rap – characterised by innovative sonics and curated guests and samples – coincides with both the digital repurposing of album covers as memes and the thinkpiece superseding the review. Nonetheless, though Scott is often positioned as an A&R opportunist, ASTROWORLD re-establishes him as a conductor and aesthete. He also reclaims his identity as a musical gamechanger over celebrity. After all, Scott has a high-profile union with the reality TV phenom Kylie Jenner, the pair welcoming baby Stormi in February.
Artist bios are about flossing. But Scott's pressers have always been especially OTT. In the ASTROWORLD blurb, he's described as a "21st century iconoclast and trendsetter." Scott – who grew up in the middle-class Houston suburb of Missouri City – has branded his prodigy status. Primarily a beatmaker, the college drop-out worked on West's Yeezus, emerging as one of GOOD Music's in-house producers. He was credited on Madonna's Rebel Heart. In the interim, La Flame signed to TI's Grand Hustle Records via Epic. In 2015, he debuted with Rodeo – cosmic avant-trap. The next year, Scott issued the gothic Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight. He toured Australia with Listen Out, proving himself worthy of his "rager" tag.
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Last year Scott launched his own label, Cactus Jack Records. He aired the Murda Beatz-produced BUTTERFLY EFFECT – and what might have been a loosie is retrospectively now ASTROWORLD's lead single, possibly due to its being commended by Barack Obama. (Scott has left off May's slept-on Watch with West and Lil Uzi Vert.) In December Scott dropped a joint project with Migos' Quavo, Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho. Plus he (finally) received a Grammy nomination for guesting on SZA's Love Galore.
ASTROWORLD's genesis lies in a song on Rodeo. Helmed by DJ Dahi, the suite 90210 (featuring Kacy Hill), finds Scott's experimentation and narrative style converging. It's his counterpart to Frank Ocean's Pyramids. ASTROWORLD expands on this paradigm. Indeed, Scott is the King of the Beat Switch. The preface, STARGAZING, begins as neo-psychedelia, only to erupt into dub-trap – with an Auto-Tuned Scott, referencing past personal traumas, ever looking forward.
Scott first mentioned the title ASTROWORLD in 2016. It derives from a Houston amusement park, Six Flags AstroWorld, he attended as a kid. Unfortunately, the institution was demolished in 2005. ASTROWORLD becomes an allegory of Scott's leaving behind childhood for fame, and parenthood, as he raps about everything from drugs to affluence to relationships. Alas, ASTROWORLD hasn't appeared without controversy. Photographer David LaChapelle shot two surrealist sleeves of Scott's fantasy carnival – one for day and one for night.
But, while LaChapelle's muse, the iconic transgender supermodel Amanda Lepore, was originally depicted on the nocturnal edition, she is gone from the finished product – an unfortunate case of erasure. LaChapelle suggested on Instagram that Lepore "upstaged" the other models – which Scott subsequently confirmed on his socials. "ASTROWORLD IS ABOUT LOVE AND EXPRESSION NOT HATE! This is very important for me to speak up about: Growing up I've been taught to accept everyone, not to cast people away but bring them in your home! I have nothing but respect for the LGBTQ community. I want to use my voice to make it clear that everyone on this planet is as equal and fucking awesome to the next."
ASTROWORLD's cast is epic – with figures like Ocean, Drake and The Weeknd (on two tracks!). Oh, and the weirdly polarising NAV of beibs in the trap is back on YOSEMITE. However, all are unlisted and, to an extent, inconspicuous – although Drizzy runs away with SICKO MODE, a beat triptych from Hit-Boy. The apex of ASTROWORLD is the six-minute STOP TRYING TO BE GOD, about ego.
It somehow manages to involve Earth, Wind & Fire's Philip Bailey, KiD CuDi, James Blake and, on harmonica, Stevie Wonder. Today, Blake commands a huge cult following in urban-pop, the Brit blessing Black Panther: The Album. And, curiously, he even cameos in the Blackstar-scale video accompanying STOP… – as does Jenner.
Scott collaborates with Tame Impala's Kevin Parker on SKELETONS, having previously lauded his "ambient tracks", again in Numero Homme. Similarly to Blake, the Perth band has an unexpected fandom in urban circles. Miguel had Parker remix Waves, off 2015's Wildheart, and Rihanna sublimely covered New Person, Same Old Mistakes for 2016's ANTI. Yet SKELETONS is its own adventure, with The Weeknd and Pharrell Williams along for the ride. It's so OMG that you could easily miss that ASTROTHUNDER has input from Frank Dukes, Thundercat and Pyramids guitarist John Mayer.
Throughout ASTROWORLD, Scott pays subliminal homage to his hometown. Poignantly, R.I.P. SCREW (with Rae Sremmurd's Swae Lee) is dedicated to Houston's DJ Screw, who invented chopped and screwed. Mind, it's conceivably Scott's idea of quiet storm balladry. But the splendour of ASTROWORLD is that it sounds like Scott's vision – his chief cohort, fellow Houstonian Mike Dean, anchoring it. The danger with art-rap is that it can result in more posturing than lyrical depth. Rocky's TESTING was disappointingly desultory. Scott isn't a GOAT lyricist, either. Still, ASTROWORLD's conceptual scope compensates for any deficiencies. And, yes, Scott does have presence.
Absent from ASTROWORLD is the nihilism that defines so much (cloud) rap – a new wave of hip hoppers venerating Joy Division and Nirvana. While melancholy, ASTROWORLD feels alive. Scott (knowingly) opens up about his life as part of the Kardashian/Jenner fold in the finale, COFFEE BEAN – Southern neo-soul made with Drake cohort Nineteen85. "I'm just bad-bad news," he raps to Jenner. "Your family told you I'm a bad move/Plus, I'm already a black dude." Ultimately, ASTROWORLD's theme is the empowerment of art.
