Before the Astroworld Tragedy, Travis Scott’s ‘Raging’ made him a star

Travis Scott has at all times been a showman at the beginning.
A grasp of selling who’s equally expert at curating big-name collaborators and unique experiences, Scott is a determine of few phrases and little eye contact who isn’t generally known as a technically adept rapper or a dynamic offstage celeb. Instead, he has constructed his multiplatinum, broadly licensed title as an avatar of extra and a conductor of vitality — an electrical stay performer who prioritizes how his music makes you’re feeling (and act).
Since 2015, when he established himself as a dependable live performance headliner, Scott (born Jacques B. Webster) has gained a world status as a star attraction and an evangelist for good-natured bodily expression — what he calls “raging” — whipping up mosh pits, crowd-surfers and stage-divers as his exhibits teeter on the sting of mayhem. In a uncommon trajectory, the smash hits got here solely later.

“The way he interacts with his crowd, he’s one of the only artists that when he comes on, he can vibe with every single person,” one fan defined within the Netflix documentary Travis Scott: Look Mom I Can Fly, from 2019. Amid montages of blood, sweat and colliding our bodies, one other added: “You can fall and everyone will pick you up. It’s weird how one person’s music can turn everyone into such a family.”
Such expressive, loosely choreographed rowdiness — a standard and longtime characteristic of stay performances throughout musical milieus, together with steel, punk and ska — doesn’t essentially equate with mass hazard.
But Scott’s makes an attempt to stability a sort of community-based catharsis with the powder keg of a rambunctious younger crowd — which has led to accusations that he has incited followers and inspired unsafe behaviour — tipped decisively towards tragedy Friday evening in Houston, the place eight folks have been killed and a whole bunch extra injured because the rapper carried out the ultimate set of the evening on the third iteration of his Astroworld pageant.

Authorities are investigating what induced the surges within the viewers of fifty,000, and the way that contributed to the “mass casualty event,” which lasted for an estimated 40 minutes, in keeping with regulation enforcement. The Houston police chief, Troy Finner, stated officers apprehensive that ending the present sooner may have induced a riot.
Scott stated in a video assertion on Instagram that regardless of acknowledging an ambulance within the crowd, he didn’t realise the extent of the emergency. He famous that he sometimes halts his concert events to verify injured followers could make it to security, including: “I could just never imagine the severity of the situation.”
Representatives for Scott stated Monday that he would cowl all funeral prices for many who died at Astroworld, whereas additionally offering refunds to all attendees who purchased tickets. The rapper has additionally cancelled his upcoming headlining look Saturday on the Day N Vegas pageant, they stated.
While crowd-control disasters have occurred at rock concert events, spiritual celebrations and soccer matches, the incident in Houston has rapidly turned Scott’s largest promoting level and foundational philosophy as an artist right into a flashpoint about his culpability after years of encouraging — and collaborating in — excessive behaviour by his followers.
Finding an Identity Onstage
Scott, a Houston native who dropped out of the University of Texas to pursue music, grew to become a protege to Kanye West in 2012. Using West’s inclination towards cultural pastiche, together with the genre-hopping, fashion-forward templates of artists like Kid Cudi and ASAP Rocky, Scott rapidly emerged close to the forefront of a micro-generation of rappers — Playboi Carti, Trippie Redd, Lil Uzi Vert — who introduced a punk-rock sensibility to the mass scale of recent rap, particularly in live performance.

After a couple of high-profile visitor appearances and two mixtapes launched in 2013 and 2014, Scott’s first studio album, “Rodeo,” was launched by Epic Records and rapper T.I.’s Grand Hustle label in 2015. Just a yr earlier, Scott was enjoying for tiny audiences. But after his correct debut, the musician started realizing his goals of formidable stage design and adrenaline to match.
In a 2015 GQ phase referred to as “How to Rage With Travis Scott,” the rapper linked his childhood fantasy of changing into an expert wrestler to his later want to make his concert events “feel like it was the WWF.”
But as Scott’s numerous viewers expanded and his operation professionalised, he additionally ran up towards the boundaries of his amiable anarchy. At the Lollapalooza pageant that summer time in Chicago, the rapper’s set was reduce off 5 minutes in, after he advised followers to hurry the barricades, flip off safety and chant, “We want rage,” leading to a stampede that injured a 15-year-old lady. Scott later pleaded responsible to reckless conduct and was put below courtroom supervision for a yr.
In 2017, Scott was arrested once more after a efficiency in Arkansas, the place he was charged with inciting a riot for encouraging followers to hurry the stage and bypass safety. He ultimately pleaded responsible to a misdemeanour for disorderly conduct, and paid a $7,465.31 advantageous.

A Superstar Expands His Influence
Scott’s celeb quickly skyrocketed. The similar yr as his arrest in Arkansas, he joined the prolonged Kardashian universe because the boyfriend of Kylie Jenner; the couple had a daughter, Stormi, in 2018 and at the moment are anticipating their second youngster.
But it was the discharge of Scott’s third album, “Astroworld,” in the summertime of 2018, that cemented him among the many higher echelon of famous person performers — and salesmen. The album launch was paired with an intensive merchandise assortment that drove purchases, and it helped result in collaborations with McDonald’s, Hot Wheels, Nike, Reese’s and extra.
“Astroworld” additionally featured the rapper’s first Billboard No. 1 single, “Sicko Mode,” with Drake, a feat Scott would repeat three extra instances from 2019 to 2020. He has collected eight Grammy nominations since 2013, launched three chart-topping albums and is called a streaming juggernaut.
Amid his big-budget diversification, Scott used his blockbuster launch to kick off the pageant of the identical title, constructing on the business pattern of big-tent, weekend-long concert events branded and curated by main artists. (Astroworld was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic; nonetheless, 28 million viewers watched Scott carry out throughout the online game Fortnite.)
The Netflix documentary “Look Mom I Can Fly” chronicled the lead-up to the “Astroworld” album and the primary version of the pageant. But even because it underlined Scott’s penchant for stoking hype — fast-forwarding by the empty crowds of his early profession to the bedlam of Lollapalooza, Arkansas and his pyrotechnic-heavy enviornment exhibits in hectic, high-voltage footage — there have been moments that gestured towards the necessity for warning, as nicely.
Scott is seen chastising safety and egging on his crowd, however he’s additionally proven a number of instances pausing onstage as seemingly unconscious our bodies are lifted by the gang to be handled. “I feel bad, though,” he says after his launch from jail in Arkansas. “I heard about kids getting hurt.”

Before one other present, a member of the rapper’s crew is proven backstage, getting ready the venue’s safety employees.
“Our kids, they push up against the front and spread all the way across that and fill in the whole front floor, so the pressure becomes very great up against the barricade,” the person, whose face is blurred within the footage, tells them. “You will see a lot of crowd-surfers in general, but also you see a lot of kids that are just trying to get out and get to safety because they can’t breathe, because it’s so compact.”
“You won’t know how bad it can be with our crowd,” he provides, “until we turn on.”