The gruelling first encounter Travis Scott ever had with Kanye West
With the release of ‘Father,’ Kanye West and Travis Scott have added yet another song to the extensive list of their collaborations. They’ve been working together for a long time now, but, had their first meeting gone another way, perhaps they wouldn’t have taken to each other as well as they ultimately did?
Travis got his first real break when Ye discovered him in 2012, when he wasn’t especially well-known yet. He invited him to contribute to his GOOD Music label’s compilation album Cruel Summer, which introduced Travis to a much wider audience than ever before. It was only up from there.
Speaking to Complex in 2012 about Ye’s role in his rise, Travis reflected on the very first time he actually met his soon-to-be mentor. Travis had been trying to make it in hip-hop for some time, and he was making some progress. But it was only when he got a call from one of Ye’s associates that things truly clicked in place.
This person told Travis to come to New York to see Kanye, which he did. But when it came to actually meeting Ye in person, things didn’t run entirely smoothly. Ye entered the room while on the phone to someone, and Travis had to wait his turn.
But when Ye had finished the call, things got worse for Travis. Ye offered him some food, specifically a taco. “He gave it to me on this fancy-ass platter, like some Hermes shit,” Travis recalled, before noting what the issue was. “What’s crazy is, I don’t eat like sour cream.”
That was a problem, because this taco was loaded with the stuff. Travis was extremely reluctant to get stuck in, which didn’t go unnoticed by Ye. “He’s like ‘Why aren’t you eating it?’” Travis recalled.
This meeting was a huge deal for the young rapper, so Travis didn’t want to seem ungrateful or to give the wrong impression. So, despite his visceral disgust for sour cream, he wolfed it down.
“All my n*ggas know that shit would make me throw up,” Travis said. “But I ate the whole shit! I wasn’t going to be like, ‘No, I’m not fucking with this taco man. You put this shit on this nice plate, but I’m not about to eat it.’”
While Travis noted that the taco “was so fucking disgusting,” he managed to get through the ordeal without throwing up. He was so excited by getting to show off his work to Kanye West that he suppressed his disgust. “Just playing him my music and just to see him nod his head even a little bit was just ill,” he said.
Ye liked what he heard, albeit he immediately offered Travis a critique of the music. Travis was happy for the pointers, and their musical relationship only grew from there. “It was fresh,” he said, “other than that like sour cream in my fucking mouth.”