Rodeo at 10: how Travis Scott’s debut became the blueprint for modern trap
In the year of 2015, rap albums like Tetsuo and Youth by Lupe Fiasco, I Don’t Like Shit I don’t Go Outside by Earl Sweatshirt, and of course the now legendary and highly considered the greatest rap album of all time To Pimp a Butterfly.
Landmark hip-hop albums were all flying out like there’s not tomorrow. All discussing heavy topics of racism in America, mental health issues and identity.
Yet during this time out came Travis Scott, fresh off being picked up by Kanye West to help out with Yeezus two years prior, drops his first studio album Rodeo, talking about no more than doing drugs, getting money and having more auto-tune trap melodies than a T-Pain Choir.
Though mixed on release, Rodeo has since earned a reputation as the definitive trap album. Being highly influential to such artists as Playboi Carti, Lil Uzi Vert and Don Toliver, who are now considered pioneers of trap rap as a whole and are some of the biggest artists of our generation.
Rodeo is the definition of style over substance, and listeners are all for it, because if the hooks are hypnotic enough then who cares what Travis has to say right?
The project is just 16 tracks of straight Flame, absolute earcandy, it’s cinematic, and in its own right even if not very deep takes you on a journey.
With its use of spacey synths, infectious 808 drum patterns, addicting melodies the production just feels big.
Surprisingly, one of the album’s standout moments comes from Justin Bieber, whose effortless mix of rapping and melodic flow even outshines Travis and Young Thug on their own track.
Which just leaves us wondering why he doesn’t step in the booth like this more?
Travis is angry, and that comes through with his ‘rager’ energy on nearly every track. A philosophy he’s carried like a banner ever since. His high-octane and rawness is absolutely magnetic.
After saying all of that it must sound pretty impressive, but sometimes we forget just how many iconic songs are brought to us on Rodeo, from the likes of ‘Antidote’, ‘90210’ and the all mighty, ‘Nightcrawler’ which at this point even 10 years later needs zero introduction.
Back discussing ‘90210’, and in a world of iconic and damn near mind bending beat switches, this has to at least be in the top 5 greatest of all time, not just in trap.
From the slow spaced out first half, to the inspiring and upbeat second half, the two mash up perfectly to create a masterpiece, if one song were to describe Travis Scott perfectly as an artist it would be ‘90210’.
The project makes you feel like you can conquer the world, Scott never forgets to shout out where he’s from, how he’s come up, the ambition that he had since a kid and how he has worked for everything he has earnt, which you must not have a soul to feel inspired by.
Overall Rodeo, is a drugged out journey through space, with some of the era-shaping trap production of all time, it is by far the greatest release Travis Scott has made thus far.
Although reaching close heights with projects like ‘Astroworld’, which despite being more commercially successful, still wasn’t enough to even touch the reputation and the pure trap bliss that is his debut studio project.
Rodeo isn’t just Travis Scott’s masterpiece — it’s the blueprint for modern trap, still echoing through the genre a decade later, and for decades to come.
