Rodeo
The pivotal release in the soon-to-be-superstar’s career, *Rodeo* pinpoints the moment the Houston rapper took his murky vision wide-screen, making the Kanye protégé’s syrupy, post-*Yeezus* goth-rap palatable to the mainstream. There’s a lot going on on Travis Scott’s major-label debut: dirtbag bangers with the distortion turned to 11 (done best on the Swae Lee and Chief Keef collab “Nightcrawler”), unexpectedly catchy sing-along anthems (“Antidote,” at the time Scott’s biggest hit to date), depraved Justin Bieber verses (the wonderfully strange “Maria I’m Drunk”), and grunge-rap numbers on which Kanye threatens to piss on your grave (on, well, take a wild guess). The expanded edition introduces two new songs into the fold: the evil-sounding ScHoolboy Q collab “Ok Alright” and the psychedelic “Never Catch Me,” on which Scott raps, “My fifteen seconds lasted a little longer.” True.
There are few emerging artists more polarizing than Travis Scott. After releasing a solid buzz-building free studio album, Days Before Rodeo*,* last year, Scott follows it up with his long-awaited major debut, Rodeo, a master class in the pyramid scheming of rap industry politics.
Artists from Kid Cudi to A$AP Mob were coming at the genre from all sorts of new angles, but with their feet firmly in the rap camp; then producer Travis Scott came along, sounding like Chief Keef but with a much broader brush, offering an attractive version of acid rap that landed him on Kanye West's GOOD Music label with a debut album that's so 2015 it features the ultra-hip trifecta of Future, the Weeknd, and Justin Bieber.
One of the more common knocks against Travis Scott in his young career is the "style over substance" approach taken on each of his own recor...
Last year's 'Days Before Rodeo' was arguably one of the most captivating hip-hop releases of 2014. It served as a teaser for Travis