Before Houston-born artist and producer Travis Scott became known to audiences for his affiliation with rapper Kanye West’s GOOD Music and T.I.’s Grand Hustle, Scott’s name was circulating among those who tune in to the mixtape circuit. While Scott became a household name outside of Hip Hop in 2018 and 2019 with his massive album Astroworld, he has also been popular among as a result of his relationship with Kylie Jenner and his association with the Kardashian family. But what more do we know about this talented music producer? Since you have a clear curiosity about this talented Houstonian, we’ve got all the details right here.
A Young Scott
Born Jacques Berman Webster II, rapper Travis Scott was born in Houston, Texas, though he actually lived the first six years of his young life living with his grandmother in South Park, Houston. When describing the neighborhood that grew up, Scott admitted:
“Growing up, my grandmother stayed in the ‘hood, so I saw random crazy sh*t. [I saw] mad bums and crazy spazzed out motherf**kers, I saw people looking weird, hungry, and grimy. I was always like, ‘I gotta get the f**k out this sh*.’ It gave me my edge—[it made me] who I am right now.”
Jacques Webster later moved to the middle-class suburb of Missouri City to live with his parents – his mother was an Apple employee, while his father ran his own business and was a soul musician in his free time. Scott finished high school at age seventeen and then moved on to the University of Texas-San Antonio.
While he dropped out before his sophomore year in college, he still had a rhyme and reason. Travis’ plan was to relocate to New York City to pursue his music career. Unfortunately, his parents did not support his decision to drop out, and as punishment, they decided to cut him off financially from any family resources and kick him out of the home.
Pursuing Music
In 2008, Scott released an EP on Myspace with his long-time friend Chris Holloway as part of their duo the Graduates. A year later, Travis Scott would form a second duo with one of his schoolmates – the Classmates – with OG Chess. While working together, Scott handled the production elements of their work together. While the two produced two projects, they would later part ways in 2011 as a result of interpersonal conflicts and financial disputes.
This led to Travis Scott bouncing between New York City and Los Angeles, Scott spent some time sleeping on the floor at his friend’s house while he began transitioning the trajectory of his professional life. T.I., the Atlanta-based rapper and owner of Grand Hustle Records, would later hear one of Scott’s recordings – “Lights (Love Sick).” T.I.’s representative then contacted Scott and asked him to attend a meeting. Travis then spent the next two years working on his first solo full-length mixtape titled Owl Pharaoh, as well as his second mixtape, titled Days Before Rodeo.
Once Scott was hired as an in-house producer for GOOD Music, his career began moving along at a drastic pace – Scott’s debut on the front cover of XXL Magazine as a chosen part of the 2013 Freshman Class ensemble of highlighted new hip hop artists and really put him on the map. By the early 2010s, Scott was slowly becoming a household name as a result of his heavily auto-tuned vocal and rap style.
Largely beginning as a result of his work as co-producer and featured artist with Kanye West on his 2012 Cruel Summer compilation, Scott began racking up Billboard 200 hit singles. Not only did his studio albums – Rodeo (2015), Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight (2016), and Astroworld (2018) – skyrocket his fame, but he was also able to work on a great many collaborations. Whether it was with Rihanna, 2 Chainz, Drake, the Weeknd, Young Thug, Kendrick Lamar, or Quavo of the Migos, Scott gained tremendous popularity, particularly through his unmistakable vocal adlibs. Along with the new music and music videos, in 2017, Scott would also announce his own label imprint – Cactus Jack Records.
Musically, Travis Scott admits that he pulls from a number of sources of inspiration. Scott claims that he looks to artists such as Bon Iver, Kid Cudi, M.I.A., Kanye West, Toro y Moi, Tame Impala, T.I., and Thom Yorke. These musicians have helped him create his signature sound, which includes the use of audio manipulation (techniques such as Auto-Tune), delays, and stereo-sculpted chorusing and harmony structures. When asked how he defines his sound, Scott has claimed that he does not imagine himself as a Hip Hop artist. Rather, he sees his music as: “ambient,” “unremittingly dark, syncretic, hi-res, and above all unnatural,” and it has a “blend between traditional hip-hop and lo-fi.” Nonetheless, his songs like Antidote, number one song Sicko Mode, and Highest in the Room really speak for themselves in terms of his style and talent.
His Love Life
Perhaps Travis Scott’s most famous relationship is with Kylie Jenner of Keeping Up With Kardashian’s fame. Beginning in 2017, the two started dating after meeting through mutual friends at the festival Coachella. While Coachella was not exactly their first date, they did claim that it was a moment where it was clear that they got along and were attracted to one another.
Ten months later, his girlfriend Kylie Jenner gave birth to their first child together. The couple named their daughter Stormi Webster who was born on February 1, 2018. The couple was constantly captured in photos together, and their fans increasingly noticed that they had become inseparable – especially since Kardashian had met Scott’s family.
Not only would they buy one another lavish gifts and spend precious family time together, but they would take family trips with one another to fancy places like Turks and Caicos. The two were so in love – which was especially clear by the thoughtful gifts exchanged. Jenner remembered:
“On my birthday, he woke me up out of bed at like six in the morning. He was like, ‘We gotta go,’ and I’m just like half asleep, like, ‘What do you mean? What do you mean?’ And he just starts pulling me, and the sun was just coming up, and he had flowers all the way down his house and violin players everywhere.”
While the couple was at one point rumored to be thinking about getting engaged, the two would continually break-up and then get back together. According to People Magazine, the two have a relationship that, at best, can be defined as on-and-off again. According to one insider: “They tend to take little breaks all the time and then get back together. It’s definitely possible they’ll work things out again.”
By 2019, Jenner confirmed that the two had split from one another. That said, she did confirm that the two would continue co-parenting their daughter. As early as October, after Jenner went to Justin Bieber’s wedding alone, rumors started circulating that they were broken off, but apparently they were just taking some time off from each other without completely ending things.
Jenner would later confirm the split quickly thereafter. By 2020, the on-again-off-again status would continue. Rumors started swirling in March of 2020 that Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner were back together. While sources have indicated that the couple had broken off again in July, the two have not yet confirmed their status. But with Travis and Kylie’s daughter Stormi in the mix, hopefully, they are to work things out as a couple.
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