The rapper Travis Scott called “the man”
Travis Scott has been at the top of the Hip Hop game for the best part of a decade now. With his take on traditional hip hop including a sprinkling of lo-fi, and a knack for showmanship, audiences have flocked to his shows all across the world.
Having scaled the mountain of rap, been synonymous with the genre in recent times, and the natural propensity for artists in the field to be anything but humble, it might come as a shock to a few that the formerly known as Jacques Berman Webster II would consider anyone but himself as the greatest. Not so.
During the marketing tour for his 2016 album Birds in the trap sing McKnight, the Houston native would go on to wax lyrical about one of his collaborators on the project, when he stopped by the Hot 97 radio station and took over Ebro in AM’s show.
“Shout out K-Dot. I love you, you the man,” Exclaimed Scott, “And when I hit Brock [Korsan,] up, I was like ‘Yo man, I need this K-dot verse’. He had a show and people started singing Antidote, and he was like doing it with ‘em. I was like ‘Yo, I’m on Kendrick’s radar’. You know you be RIPing N’s on the track man…and yo, cause I listened to the whole song and I always thought that ‘yo, this song is so good’.”
He continued: “Yo, when that dude hit the high note, I was like ‘yo man, this dude is on some other shit’. I be wanting to call him like ‘Who you mad at bro? You be blacking out on these things’. But that’s the mental man, and that’s why he’s the greatest artist.”
As hard as it might be to believe, given his larger than life personality on stage, Scott is usually quite timid in his interviews. This one was different. When speaking about the man from Compton Travis was, in its purest form, in full adoration of his fellow rapper. This kind of vulnerability is rarely shown by artists in a genre where “street cred” is of the utmost importance.
‘Goosebumps’, featuring Kendrick Lamar, is now the track with the most streams on Spotify amongst Scott’s impressive discography. With the ‘Humble’ rapper’s addition it’s easy to see why. The guest verse is the equivalent of 4 features in one. A classic breathless Kendrick flow follows a repetitive introduction. Then comes the now infamous falsetto rap that left Travis stunned, finished off with a bout alliteration that Shakespeare would be proud of.
Whilst it seems obvious that Kendrick Lamar should receive praise from those of us outside the game. Such is the aura of the man, it appears that his fans include those that he shares the stage with.