“Upper Echelon” is an absolute anthem, the sort of song that exists to cave in your car windows. verse and a beat that sounds like your soul burning. The greatest moment on Owl Pharaoh, by quite some distance, is the thundering single “Upper Echelon,” which has an indelible kinda-yelled 2 Chainz hook and an on-fire T.I. But the production style pulls from reggae and Memphis goth-crunk and Lex Luger blare and moody IDM, turning it all into a monolithic churn that any rapper would be lucky to call his own. Scott is, at this point, very much a part of Kanye’s shadowy production cabal, and since Kanye helped him put together Owl Pharaoh, it’s hard to tell which parts of the tape come from Kanye or Scott or Mike Dean or Young Chop. The things I remember are the musical moments: The lurching and clanking beats, the righteously bilious dancehall choruses, the world-ending synth riffs. I wouldn’t necessarily recognize his voice blind, and I can’t recall any of his lines from Owl Pharaoh when it’s not on. But nothing about his mic presence elevates him past, say, B.o.B. He’s fluid and singsony, sliding in and out of double-time without getting sweaty with effort or muttery some pretty strong melodic hooks through the ever-present gloss of Auto-Tune. And listening to Owl Pharaoh, it’s pretty obvious that Scott helped Kanye arrive at some of the apocalyptic goth-reggae moments on Yeezus, or maybe that West and Scott helped each other arrive at those moments.Īs a rapper, Scott is a perfectly serviceable presence, but he never really distinguishes himself.
Beats as a producer and T.I.’s Grand Hustle as a rapper. Indeed, some of my favorite rappers have put a ton of faith in this kid he’s signed to Kanye West’s Very G.O.O.D.
(He was also part of XXL’s most recent Freshman class, which never really helps anything.) But then Scott’s name showed up over and over again in the credits to Yeezus, probably my favorite album of the year thus far, and it just didn’t make sense to keep ignoring his name. When Scott first started showing up on rap blogs months ago, I was content to dismiss him as another A$AP-come-lately, and certain parts of Owl Pharaoh do bear that theory out. By contrast, Owl Pharaoh, from the young Houstonian rapper/producer Travi$ Scott, is a messy splurge of ideas, both good and bad. Both Million Dollar Afro and Still Goin In Reloaded are classic growers, finely crafted but unassuming tapes with hooks that take their time to sneak up on you. In the grand tradition of Iamsu! & Problem’s Million Dollar Afro and Rich Homie Quan’s Still Goin In Reloaded, here’s another column about a mixtape that didn’t come out in the past seven days, one that’s taken a few months to prove just how important it is.
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