Travis Scott

Travis Scott is an American rapper and producer known for his dark ambient style, high-energy performances, and innovative uses of audio manipulation, including Auto-Tune.

Scott’s meteoric career has been marked by enormous success as well as tragedy and controversy. Noted for his talent at forging corporate partnerships, Scott’s personal brand extends beyond music to include clothing, film, restaurant meals, shoes, sunglasses, and video games. At concerts his fans are often referred to as “ragers,” while he is called “La Flame.” During a 2021 concert 10 fans were crushed to death as Scott continued to perform. In 2026 he was cast as a bard in Christopher Nolan’s epic film The Odyssey.

Early life

Scott is the first of three children born to Jacques and Wanda Webster, who named him Jacques Bermon Webster II. His parents called him “Jack” or “Junior.” Scott’s father was an entrepreneur; his mother worked in retail. For the first six years of his life, Scott stayed with his grandmother Sealie Terrell before joining his parents in the Houston suburb of Missouri City, where he attended private schools before enrolling in Elkins High School. As a young teenager, he was a ball boy for the Houston Rockets.

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Music was an important part of the Webster household. Scott’s father was an amateur soul musician who bought Scott a drum set for his third birthday; Scott’s paternal grandfather, Waymon Webster, was a band director and music teacher. Scott learned to play both the drums and the piano and sang in Elkins High musicals. At 16 Scott started learning about music production, as he felt that the instruments he had previously played weren’t getting him enough attention from girls. This new focus caused a rift with his father, who sometimes shut off power to Scott’s bedroom rather than listen to Scott’s music.

Music career

At 17 Scott began producing music with friends, first an EP (extended play) as a duo with Chris Holloway and then full albums with Jason Eric (OG Chess) from 2010 to 2012. For these projects he took the name Travis Scott (stylized Travi$ Scott at the time), a combination of his uncle’s first name and the real name of rapper Kid Cudi, Scott Mescudi. Meanwhile he attended the University of Texas at San Antonio as a business major, but he dropped out in his sophomore year to focus on his music career, without telling his parents. Using the money his parents sent him for college, he traveled to New York City and Los Angeles looking for work. An unscheduled visit to the university by his parents eventually revealed Scott’s absence, leading them to cut off their support. Scott returned to Los Angeles, where he stayed on the couch of a friend at the University of Southern California while continuing to seek a foothold in the music industry.

Scott attracted the attention of music publishers, who began commissioning beats (instrumental backing tracks) from him. Eventually, record producer Anthony Kilhoffer summoned Scott to join his production team at Kanye West’s GOOD Music label in New York. Scott began at GOOD working on the 2012 showcase album Cruel Summer and its accompanying short film. In 2013 he produced new work for Kanye West’s Yeezus as well as Jay Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail.

These high-profile assignments helped to generate media interest in Scott’s own first full-length solo project, the mixtape Owl Pharaoh. Released online by Grand Hustle Records and Epic Records on May 21, 2013, the project included a single (“Upper Echelon”) with guest appearances by rapper T.I., who had signed Scott to Grand Hustle, and 2 Chainz. The mixtape was considered by music critics to be among the best self-released music projects of the year. Scott followed up the debut with a second mixtape in 2014, Days Before Rodeo, which he uploaded independently onto the music streaming service SoundCloud. Although not as lauded critically, the release was later recognized by some as Scott’s breakout hit.

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Scott’s first studio album, Rodeo, arrived on September 4, 2015, again from Grand Hustle and Epic Records. Propelled by Scott’s growing buzz and a host of guest vocals from other rappers, as well as an unexpected drop-in from pop star Justin Bieber (“Maria I’m Drunk”), Rodeo debuted at number one on Billboard’s Top Rap Albums chart and number three on the Billboard 200. The album met with mixed reviews but went double platinum, fully establishing Scott as a major artist. Shortly afterward Scott stopped using the dollar sign in his name.

In September 2016 Scott premiered his second studio album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, on his radio show .WAV Radio. Among the usual plethora of guest appearances was a cameo by Scott’s boyhood idol Kid Cudi (“Through the Late Night”), who in turn featured Scott in a song of his own (“Baptized in Fire”). The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, Scott’s first to do so. The following week Scott signed a publishing deal with Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company.

Scott announced the formation of his own record label and music publishing company, Cactus Jack Records, on March 6, 2017. His first album under this label was a collaborative effort with his best friend and fellow rapper Quavo; the pair named their dual act Huncho Jack and their record Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho. Released on December 21, 2017, the record debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts.

That year Scott also began an on-again, off-again romantic relationship with television personality Kylie Jenner, whose sister Kim Kardashian was married to Kanye West. Scott and Jenner had two children over the following years, a daughter named Stormi and a son named Aire.

Astroworld and fallout

Astroworld, Scott’s third studio album as a solo act, followed on August 3, 2018. Scott’s love of collaboration was in full evidence, as the album involved guest vocals from more than 15 other artists and work from 29 producers. Astroworld not only easily eclipsed the popularity of Scott’s previous albums—all 17 tracks entered the Billboard Hot 100, including “Sicko Mode” and “Stargazing” in the top 10—but also received the critical acclaim that his previous albums had not. Almost a decade after its release, Rolling Stone would describe “Sicko Mode” as possessing “one of the most significant beat switches in rap history.”

That November Scott founded the Astroworld Festival, an annual music event named (like the album) for the defunct Six Flags AstroWorld theme park in Houston that Scott had visited as a boy. Astroworld’s 2018 and 2019 events were highly successful, but the 2020 iteration was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Scott instead delivered a performance exclusively streamed inside the video game Fortnite, which kicked off a wave of in-game concerts from superstar artists including Ariana Grande and Eminem—but its return in 2021 proved to be tragic. As Scott began his set on November 5, fans surged toward the stage. Ten people were crushed and died, including a nine-year-old boy; hundreds more were injured.

Scott and the festival’s coordinators were heavily criticized for failing to recognize the gravity of the situation and end the performance. The tragedy received so much attention that the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform opened its own investigation. A grand jury ultimately declined to indict Scott or anyone else associated with the event, but Scott and concert promoter Live Nation faced thousands of wrongful death and injury lawsuits launched by the concertgoers and their families. In May 2024 Scott and Live Nation settled the last of the wrongful death lawsuits.

Scott spoke about the tragedy in a 2023 interview with GQ magazine, saying, “I mean I was just overly devastated, you know.…I always think about it. Those fans were like my family.”

In the wake of Astroworld, Scott’s productivity declined. He released occasional singles and performed with other artists but did not release a full album of his own until July 2023, when he dropped a 19-track, nearly 75-minute record titled Utopia.

That fourth studio album, featuring the usual bevy of guest vocals by A-list artists and producers and accompanied by a tie-in film, was immensely successful, becoming the biggest hip-hop release of the year. The following tour spanned six continents, taking in more than $265 million, the highest-grossing tour yet recorded by a solo rapper. The response proved that Scott’s reputation had not been permanently damaged by Astroworld.

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the release of his second mixtape, Days Before Rodeo, Scott released a remastered edition on August 23, 2024. Despite the mixtape being old material, it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, losing to Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet by a mere 1,000 units. In 2025 he released a new single, “4x4.” Although the song debuted at number one on the Hot 100, it suffered the steepest subsequent drop in Billboard history, landing at number 57 the following week.

Role in The Odyssey

Scott has a role in Christopher Nolan’s 2026 adaptation of The Odyssey, which features Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, and Charlize Theron. In a movie trailer that was released in January 2026, Scott is shown giving a speech that includes the line “A war, a man, a trick to break the walls of Troy and burn it straight into the ground!”

Nolan cast Scott as a bard, saying in a 2026 Time magazine interview, “I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap.” Scott and Nolan had worked together previously, with Scott recording “The Plan” as a theme song for Nolan’s 2020 film Tenet.

Of his time on set with Nolan, Scott told L’Officiel in 2026, “Man, it was just another world. It was so fire, to be honest, seeing someone of that caliber work and what it takes to get things done.”