10th Anniversary to the Mixtape that changed EVERYTHING

I was in D.C. at Trillectro and I watched a dude perform “Crown” by Jay-Z. Only problem is it wasn’t Jay-Z. The crowd went crazy. He brought energy and had us going crazy all 4 times he performed “Crown”. After Trillectro ended I asked “Who tf was that?! His energy was crazy”. I’ve been a fan Travis ever since. What if I told you Travis Scott had a project that featured T.I., Big Sean, Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan (At his height!) and the Migos was only a mixtape?

Days Before Rodeo starts off with “Days Before Rodeo: The Prayer” and the beats starts off with a cinematic intro but when that beat drops it gets crazy! He starts with a tempo changing flow and then gets into the chorus where he shouts “JESUS, JESUS, JESUS” almost like a loud adlib and follows with “Man, I might fuck ’round lose my mind/ I gotta break out/I’m on a stakeout/ on a farm or your lake house”. The perfect start to an album that seems to have the goal to give you the ug mug and make you bop your head. It doesn’t end there. The beat and tempo change at the end is something I could argue changed music forever. I had never heard someone change the beat like he had to the point where I thought another song was coming on. Little did I know that he would be using this trick again this album and for the rest of his career.

Next we get “Mamacita” which features Young Thug and Rich Homie Quan. This is coming off them dropping “Lifestyle”. They all float on this track. Quan on the chorus as him and Trav get melodic at times. Thug is Thug he doesn’t disappoint either. “Quintana Pt 2” which is the sequel to “Quintana” comes up next. He comes with a whole other style yelling his raps in the first verse while being very melodic then happens again. Beat change comes in an T.I. enter chat. Gives a quick 8 bars and back to the previous beat again but this time Travis gets inspired by his favorite artist Kid Cudi and serenades the track with an autotuned outro.

The next track he gets into a different sound. The theme of some sort of rock element doesn’t leave though. He taps into more Cudi inspired vibes on “Drugs You Should Try” and sings and hums over guitars, 808’s and snaps. Its a great change of pace. “Don’t Play” brings back the vibe he started with. This beat is insane and he’s using the same adlibs he uses now “STRAIGHT UP”. His verse was good but then Big Sean flows and it gets DIFFERENT! This album has a theme of dark rap with remnants of rock. “Skyfall” has a dark grungy beat with an A1 hook where Travis sings “I don’t wanna buy, oh no/ It won’t get me high, oh no” which later turns into “I don’t wanna buy no more (No more)/ Your shit ain’t gettin’ me high no more”. The song is so good you almost forget he’s talking about addiction. Young Thugs adds a verse that his unorthodox flow but raps it in a way that you can understand every word he is saying.

It’s only right I skip over to the track that features one of the best groups ever. “Sloppy Toppy” is about you know… As you listen to this you can only imagine what it does in Magic City in Atlanta. The song sounds like a Migos song that was produced by Travis that features Pewee Longway. I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. Travis was able to start off melodic, rap a verse, let all 3 Migos do what they do best and add Pewee. You can hear the strip club in the song but the problem is after hearing the song you’re going to want to go too. I could talk about this album, mixtape, whatever you want to call it all day. This is still a raw Travis. In hindsight you can see everything he ended up perfecting later and leading us to his debut album “Rodeo”. Not a perfect album. Not the best Rapping but it has great production and just makes you feel something when you press play. I give this album an 8.7 out of 10. Had such a big impact, started the song within songs and might’ve influenced the wave of rappers who wanted to be rockstars. That’s my part. Let me pass the ball to Stalefaces.

STALEFACES:

Thekidfresh and I go way back and we can debate about anything but there’s comes a time where the frequencies are in sync and this album is it so Stalefaces had to jump on here with my 2 cents. Travis came on my radar on the track “Sin City” off Kanye West’s comp album Cruel Summer. His sound was raw as hell and flow was mad different. Immediately I looked him up. Led me to a much slept on mixtape, I really haven’t heard many people talk about, which is ‘Owl Pharaoh’. This tape is where I got the full view of who this young kid was. Tracks were dark, gritty and uncut. Reminded me much of ‘Man on the Moon’. I am very much into dark moody music because I am a cudlifer and I wasn’t surprised at all that Travis looked up to Cudi as big bro.

Days Before Rodeo picks up off of ‘Owl Pharaoh’ but we see a more developed Travis. The music is more thoughtful and you can tell he is creating and honing in on his true self as a musician. Thekidfresh gave y’all game on the track list and he’s on point, but I have to spotlight “Drugs you should try”, and “Grey”. “Drugs you should try” takes you to a place of melodic chaos. His tone of voice matches the melody perfect. It’s calm, blissful and deep at the same time. This is also where he starts, what I like to call, his double tracks. He carries that over to the ‘Rodeo’ release with the tracks “90201” and “Oh My Dis Side”. Basically it’s 2 songs in one. If y’all never peeped that, y’all welcome. “Grey” is one of the best mood songs I ever heard. Paints a gloomy, melancholy atmosphere you can get lost in. Its a very relatable song and captures you and takes you on that long bus ride, head against the glass, feeling cast down, going….nowhere. I think this is the perfect album to re-release and deserves all the attention it gets. Travis has created very dope work since but now a lot of listeners will get a view of where it started.