“I’m still on top…” Travis Scott raps God bless in his new song called, his rap album, created with blockbuster ambitions, with a great soundtrack and samples of prog rock, Utopian. And it’s also possible that he was referring to the November 2021 concert that claimed ten lives in Houston, Texas, where ten young people were kicked and trampled to death by a mob. (Scott didn’t stop his concert—he claims he didn’t feel anything about the events—and even watched Drake perform after the tragedy.) For him, this year isn’t just about celebrating Utopia Four years later, a new album was released under that name at almost 75 minutes, but you can also be glad that on June 29, a Texas jury refused to indict him.
If you want blood, go for it!
Everyone can decide what kind of person they think Scott is, but right now we have to think about whether this is a good album. Utopia. When we heard the beginning of the album hyena, and we clicked, it was just suspicious that the song was the most interesting motive of the record, then it turned out that it was a Gentle Giant sound sample from 1974, Power and glory from his album Proclamation his discovery.
But it’s built on the same sound scheme as the other peak, Sirens also its main theme, here Scott is New England in Boston. The Explorer Suite reuses the title track of his album. Of course this is natural for hip hop, but then we can also think about how much more interesting the second line of prog rock is than the offer of modern artists generating billions of streams, but this should be our problem.
He wants a lot
Scott was into prog rock, he performed in Pompeii, where Pink Floyd also performed in 1972, he calls his style psychedelic rock, which only adds to his criminal record, and this year he tried to organize a concert near the pyramids of Giza, because he believes , which deserves the credit that, for the Grateful Dead who recorded it here, is sublime. rocking the cradle their concert. There are those who bask in the light of other people’s success – Scott has also assembled a veritable roster of pop stars, from Beyoncé to Kanye West and Drake to The Week – but that’s not enough for him, he still wants the aura of legendary locations. . In vain, without ambition, hip-hop will not go anywhere.
In vain is the need for a sufficiently grandiose worldbuilding, a concept chasing utopias, if the Houston rapper can’t handle the material. We don’t believe any of this because his lyrics don’t convey convincing play power and no one cares that he thinks his tail is as hard as the Eiffel Tower or how tired he is of luxury shopping as ten people died in one of the his concerts two years ago. . But the record does not convince us, not because we somehow hold it responsible for the death of others, but because the material falls under this concept, and we do not come close to understanding what it wants to say about the world.
hip hop nation
He has good lines, but his worldview doesn’t go beyond that of teenage fans. Within the land of hip-hop, despite the dollar-sign medallion adorned with rhinestone, authenticity is still the best currency. When he speaks Hyenain that i ride through hell and brought snowthen it’s ok, but often it’s just clichéd and it’s like Kanye West (i.e. Ye) in 2013 again. jeezushe would say thank you, moreover, he just adopted the musical vision from his master. Psychedelic hip-hop also didn’t take the prog rock of his West (Ye) King Crimson as the basis – Scott does the same with Gentle Giant.
I bring fire
But one who touches samples with good taste will not yet become the supreme pontiff of prog-rock. Utopia nothing more than stadium rap, Scott burns so much gas at his concerts, licks the stage so much that if he performed with us, he would have to sign a separate contract with Mall. So here are these rambling, cinematic ballads, choking on sound correction and autotune, a dazzling star-studded guest list, stretched with a certain meaning, but really just exploited prog rock patterns that, if you remove the decorations, the end result will look like a Sunday daytime gymnastics – in the conditions of the city-garden.
Travis Scott: Utopia
Cactus Jack / Epic Records
19 songs 74 minutes
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