Rodeo

AlbumSep 04 / 201516 songs, 1h 15m 27s
Trap Southern Hip Hop
Popular

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.

6.0 / 10

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.

8 / 10

Check out our album review of Artist's Rodeo on Rolling Stone.com.

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.

6 / 10

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...

6 / 10

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