ASTROWORLD

Travis Scott is a real enigma. A mystery of a man, a man of mystery, he’s a giant question mark that can’t be defined. I’m not exactly sure what his motivations and desires are. For a while I seriously thought he had a personality disorder. He reminded me of L from Death Note in real life. The main difference between the two is that L is clearly a hero while Travis is a bit murkier. L stood for justice, at the end of the day he wanted to bring Light to the proper authorities to stop murders, I don’t think Travis Scott cares about “justice”. Travis just exists, his motivations are independent, and he doesn’t allow himself to be swayed by what anyone says he should or shouldn’t do. As an anime character he’d be cool as hell. but in real life he’s a guy dressed like a ninja in a time where we don’t need ninjas. Actually, that’s a great way to describe Travis, a HipHop ninja who strikes quickly and quietly to make very large results. Travis Scott had a baby with Kardashian, released multiple pairs of his own WRESTLING THEMED Jordans, co-headlined the Super Bowl (after everyone asked him to boycott it and he lied about talking to Kaepernick about it) and dropped his long anticipated album...all while having the same dusty braids. La Flame is living every young male black nerd’s DREAM. This is what young ashy niggas fantasize about when boys in black tees are throwing milk cartons at them and girls are still putting them in the friendzone to sleep with the boys holding milk cartons. I won’t lie, if Travis was white, he’d definitely give off school shooter energy but luckily for us black kids don’t buy guns, they just rap. So, in honor of his accomplishments let’s discuss his biggest work to date. “ASTROWORLD”.

The twenty eight year old American rapper, record producer and hip-hop musician Travis Scott released his third studio album ASTROWORLD in August 2018 through Cactus Jack Records. The album is named after a theme park “Six Pack AstroWorld” located in Houston, Texas that is no longer in use. This is a hip hop album that has some intense elements of trap, electronic music and psychedelia. The album seems to have hip hop influences from around the world. There is a total of seventeen tracks in the album with an overall time length of approximately fifty eight minutes. The album features guest vocals by several other musicians like Kid Cudi, Frank Ocean, Drake, The Weeknd, James Blake, Swae Lee, Gunna, Philip Bailey, Sheck Wes, Don Toliver among many others. Travis Scott said that this album is a continuation of his debut album Rodeo (2015) and regarding the title, he said that the authorities tore down ASTROWORLD to build apartment spaces that took the all the fun out of the city as a wonderful amusement park is being closed. It was recorded in multiple studios across the mainland United States and Hawaii, and the production of the album was handled by multiple producers. The album received mostly positive reviews from the music critics and listeners, many of them agreeing that this is Scott’s best and the most interesting work till date. NME and The Independent rated the album 5 out of 5 stars praising the guest appearances and the creative musical style. The Independent described the album as “a futuristic record with virtually flawless production, that lingers on the mind long after the final track". AllMusic rated the album 4 out of 5 stars, while Rolling Stone magazine rated it 3.5 stars describing the music as “the most interesting music of his career”. Exclaim! rated the album 9 out of 10 and Pitchfork rated it 7.8 describing the album as “a sticky, humid, psychedelic world with dazzling production and odd pleasures at every turn”. It also received a good overall rating of 85 out of 100 on Metacritic. The album cover has a very interesting and catchy artwork that was shot by American photographer David LaChapelle, showing a giant golden statue of Scott’s head at the entrance of an amusement park. Two covers were released, one showing the children playing in front of the giant head and the second alternative cover showing the giant head at night time with mostly adult-themed content at the front. The album performed very well commercially, debuting at the top position on US Billboard 200. It was featured in many music charts across the world and reached the top position in countries like Swede, Norway, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand and the ARIA chart in Australia. The album was also nominated for “Best Rap Album” at the 2019 Grammy Awards. Overall, this is undeniably Travis Scott’s best work till date as he explores the new dimensions of hip hop music.

For years, I saw Travis Scott as one of those artists that people obviously loved but wasn’t resonating with me and I was comfortable with it. I enjoyed Owl Pharaoh, Days Before Rodeo and Rodeo to some extent, but didn’t think they were really extreme showcases of talent by any means and the highlights were the production and guest appearances mostly. But that all changed with Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight, which to me was one of the best albums of 2014, the same year that two of my favourite albums of all time – J. Cole’s 2014 Forest Hills Drive and Royce 5’9 and DJ Premier’s PRhyme – dropped. I put it in the same personal category as them. The album was a step up in terms of how it was put together and the way it flowed and I had to give Travis props where they were due. All of a sudden I found myself to be a fan, anticipating his music. Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho with Quavo wasn’t anything special and felt like it was put together last minute, but I didn’t assume it to be an indication of the quality of music we were to expect with Scott’s next solo album. In August of 2018, it was finally time to take it to ASTROWORLD.

ASTROWORLD is the name of an amusement park in Travis Scott’s Houston hometown, and just like a carnival atmosphere, there are many delights to discover, with Scott serving as part MC, part ring leader, bringing together, well, every-damn-body; genre heavies like Drake, The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, Kid Cudi - and wild cards like James Blake, Tame Impala, Thundercat, - and fresh acts like Juice WRLD, Sheck Wes - plus the old guard with Philip Bailey and Stevie Wonder. Lots of talent, and the great thing is they all conform to Scott’s world and sound.