The two men who inspired Travis Scott’s rap name
The name “Travis Scott” seems, at first, to be one of those rare instances of a rapper deciding to perform under their actual birth name instead of a stage name. But, in fact, it’s nothing of the sort.
Travis’ real name is actually Jacques Bermon Webster II, which has no discernible link to either “Travis” or “Scott.” So how did he come to start referring to himself that way?
Two men inspired the name Travis Scott, the first of whom was the young Jacques Bermon Webster II’s favourite relative while he was growing up. His uncle Travis was the best, and it’s from him that the rapper borrowed his first name.
“I looked up to him and shit,” Travis said of his uncle during a chat with Grantland in 2014. “That n*gga was just cool as fuck. He always just had swag. He played golf and shit. He just had swag.”
But it wasn’t just “swag” that Uncle Travis had, with his famous nephew also remarking that he was “just smart” and that he always made “good business decisions.” He inspired the future rapper to try and be more like him.
That accounts for the name “Travis,” but for “Scott” the rapper turned to someone more widely known. Travis was a huge Kid Cudi fan as a kid, and what’s Cudi’s real name? Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi.
During a 2018 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Travis noted that, while the “Scott” part of his name was a tribute to Kid Cudi, it also referenced his uncle Travis, too. His friends apparently referred to him as Scott for some reason, which made the name “Travis Scott” make even more sense for the young rapper.
“It just kinda worked out like that,” Travis told Fallon, speaking about the two men who inspired his stage name. “My two superheroes.”
Scott would later work with Kid Cudi, of course, forming a superduo with him and duly scoring a number-one single. The name of both their chart-topping song and their superduo was, fittingly, “The Scotts.”