- Q-Tip Bio: The Rise of a Hip Hop Pioneer - November 15, 2022
- Killer Mike Bio: The Rise of a Rapper Turned Activist - November 14, 2022
- Redman Bio: The Life and Career of a Hip Hop Icon - November 14, 2022
Travis Scott is one of his generation’s most successful rappers and creative entrepreneurs. Aside from just his music, he’s built a name for himself as a successful businessman by doing brand deals with companies ranging from Mcdonald’s to Fortnite. He has established himself as one of the most influential voices in rap.
I’ve been following Travis Scott’s career ever since hearing his Days Before Rodeo mixtape in 2014. My favorite Travis Scott album is Rodeo because I think it’s his most unique and innovative. But each of his projects offers a different sound and aesthetic, which is part of what made him such a successful artist. Here is a look at the life and career of Travis Scott.
- Full Name: Jacques Bermon Webster II
- Birth Date: April 30th, 1991
- Birth Place: Houston, Texas
- Nick Name: Cactus Jack, La Flame
- Nationality: American
- Zodiac Sign: Taurus
- Siblings: Jordan Webster, Joshua Webster
- Children: Stormi Webster, Wolf Webster
- Partner / Spouse: Kylie Jenner
- Most Successful Songs / Albums: Rodeo, Astroworld
- Earnings: $5 million
- Net Worth: $60 million
- Social Media:
- Instagram: @travisscott
- Twitter: @trvisXX
- Awards:
- 1 Teen Choice Award
- 1 BET Award
- 3 BET Hip Hop Awards
- 1 Billboard Music Award
- 1 MTV VMA
- Last Updated: 6/29/22
Travis Scott Birthplace
Travis Scott was born in Houston, Texas, on April 30th, 1991. Until he was six years old, he lived with his grandmother in the South Park neighborhood of Houston. But eventually, he moved to Missouri City, a middle-class suburb outside of Houston.
Travis Scott Parents
Travis Scott is the son of Wanda and Jacques Webster. His father, Jacques, owned his own business, and Wanda worked for Apple to support the family. Travis came from a musical family, and his grandfather was a jazz composer with a master’s degree in music composition. His father was also a soul musician who played drums and piano.
The rapper credits his father with introducing him to music by purchasing him a drum set when he was three years old. He also bought Travis his first studio equipment when he was 13, which is how he started making beats.
Travis Scott Early Life
Early on, Travis lived with his grandmother in the South Park neighborhood of Houston, an area known for crime and violence. Travis later stated that during this time, he saw many homeless people and drug addicts. He claims that seeing that level of struggle and poverty greatly impacted him and gave him the drive he needed to succeed.
At six years old, he went to live with his parents in Missouri City. He showed interest in music from a young age and started playing the drums and piano when he was three. But as he got older, he became obsessed with hip hop and decided to stop playing traditional instruments in favor of making beats. He took inspiration from artists like Pharrell, Kanye, and Kid Cudi to make his own unique rap style.
He attended Elkins High School in Missouri City and participated in musical theater, but his music career was always his focus. In 2008, he formed the group the Graduates with one of his friends, Chris Holloway, and they began building a local buzz by uploading their music to Myspace.
He also teamed up with another rapper from his school OG Chess, to form the group The Classmates. The group would release two projects before breaking up in 2012. Travis began skipping class to work on music, which angered his family. He and his father frequently fought over Travis’s decision to pursue music as a career and would sometimes get violent.
Travis graduated from high school early at age 17 and briefly attended The University of Texas at San Antonio, where he studied international business. However, he was still determined to make a career for himself in music, so he would take the money his parents gave him for books and spend it on studio time.
He eventually dropped out and used the money to pay for food and plane tickets to fly to New York and Los Angeles to network and work on music. At one point, Travis’s parents went to his school to visit him, which is when they discovered he’d dropped out. They were so furious that they cut him off financially, and he had to find a way on his own.
Travis Scott Professional Career
Travis found himself broke and alone without much direction. He briefly moved back to Houston, but his parents kicked him out, so he returned to Los Angeles. He began sleeping on a friend’s couch and selling beats to make money for food. At that point, he had released a few songs and videos but wasn’t making much of an impact.
That all changed after TI saw his video for the song Lights (Lovesick) and reached out to Travis to come to his studio for a meeting. Not long after, he would sign to TI’s label Grand Hustle Entertainment, which would help him take his career to the next level.
Owl Pharaoh
Travis released his first full-length mixtape Owl Pharaoh in 2013. The project had appearances from huge names like TI, 2Chainz, A$AP Ferg, Theophilus London, Wale, Paul Wall, Toro y Moi, James Fauntleroy, and Meek Mill. It helped Travis build a modest buzz and even landed him a spot on the XXL Freshman Class list. But he was still couch surfing and struggling to find his way financially.
That didn’t stop him from mingling with the rich and famous. He had also formed a relationship with Kanye West, who had helped him produce Owl Pharaoh and invited him to become a part of his GOOD Music Imprint. Around the same time, he began working closely with Kanye and his engineer Mike Dean as a producer on Kanye’s album Yeezus, Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail, and the GOOD Music compilation Cruel Summer. So, Travis was steadily building a name for himself in the industry and rubbing shoulders with the biggest names in music.
Days Before Rodeo
On March 13th, 2014, he released a song featuring Big Sean and announced that it would be included on his next mixtape, Days Before Rodeo. The project was released on August 18th, 2014, and featured appearances from Rich Homie Quan, Young Thug, Big Sean, 1975, Migos, and Peewee Longway.
The album received a positive reception from critics and fans, who praised its bold and innovative sound. I love Days Before Rodeo because you can hear Travis’s hunger on the project, and it’s where he began to establish his own unique sound that was not just a rendition of his biggest influences.
Days Before Rodeo helped Travis build a bigger fanbase and established him as one of the leading voices in the new wave of Southern hip hop. Soon after, he announced The Rodeo Tour with Young Thug and Metro Boomin. It ran through several major cities and featured surprise appearances from Kanye West, Birdman, Chris Brown, and others.
Rodeo
Following the tour’s success, Travis released two singles, 3500 and Antidote, to build hype for his debut studio album. Rodeo came out on September 14th, 2015, and had a star-studded track list that included all the top names in the industry, including Kanye West, Young Thug, Justin Bieber, Swae Lee, Chief Keef, Future, Quavo, the Weeknd, Juicy J and more. The album was a critical and commercial success, debuting at number 3 on the Billboard 200.
Rodeo is my favorite Travis Scott album because it had a very innovative sound for the time that took the aesthetic of modern trap and incorporated more unique song ideas and multi-layered production. It remains a classic album of that era and one of Travis’s best projects. After Rodeo, Travis continued to build his hype and was featured on high-profile releases by Kanye West, Young Thug, and Rhianna.
Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight
He returned the following year with his second studio album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight. The album was supported by three singles, Wonderful, Goosebumps featuring Kendrick Lamar, and Pick Up the Phone featuring Quavo and Young Thug. The album debuted at number one on Billboard and sold 88,000 album-equivalent units in the first week. While Birds in the Trap featured some of Travis’s most iconic hits to date, in my opinion, the album isn’t quite as consistent as Rodeo.
But it did catapult Travis into the upper echelons of rap and celebrity culture. Not long after that, Travis met Kylie Jenner, and the two started dating in 2017, bringing him into the world of the Kardashians. Travis continued to appear on high-profile releases by artists like Drake, SZA, and 2chainz.
He also began building his own label Cactus Jack and began cultivating his own roster of talent. In 2017 he released a collaborative tape with Quavo from the Migos called Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho, the first release on his new label. He would also go on to sign artists like Smokepurpp, Don Toliver, and Sheck Wes.
Astroworld
In 2018, Travis released his much anticipated 3rd studio album Astroworld, named after a theme park in his hometown of Houston that he used to visit as a kid. The album was met with massive critical and commercial acclaim and sold over 500,000 album-equivalent units in the first week. The album was a woozy joyride full of trap and indie rock-inspired bangers that included guest appearances from Drake, The Weeknd, James Blake, 21 Savage, Tame Impala, Swae Lee, Gunna, and more.
The album showed Travis pushing his sound in a new direction and delivering a conceptually and sonically unique project. Astroworld is my second favorite Travis Scott album after Rodeo, and while I find it a bit less bold and genre-bending, I still think it’s a phenomenal project.
After that, Travis took a backseat and gave some of his new artists some shine by dropping the JackBoys collaboration tape. The project featured frequent musical collaborators like Young Thug and Quavo and up-and-coming talents like Sheck Wes and the late Pop Smoke. In 2020 Travis did five virtual live shows for the video game Fortnight Battle Royal, which was in the early months of the pandemic and drew more than 27 million viewers. In late 2021, he released a single called Escape Plan, the lead single for his forthcoming studio album Utopia.
In November of that year, he hosted his third annual Astroworld Festival, which had been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The music festival ended in tragedy after becoming a mass casualty event where ten people lost their lives. Travis faced intense public scrutiny for continuing to perform while people were dying.
He had to postpone his album release and take a major hiatus from music out of respect for the deceased. But in 2022, he released a collaboration with Future and Southside from 808 Mafia called Hold that Heat and announced that he’d be performing at several upcoming festivals.
Travis Scott Videos
Travis Scott – SICKO MODE ft. Drake
Travis Scott – MAFIA (2022 Billboard Music Awards)
Travis Scott and Fortnite Present: Astronomical (Full Event Video)
Travis Scott Family
Travis Scott has two twin siblings, Jordan and Joshua Webster, who are nine years younger than Travis. He also has two children with Kylie Jenner, Stormi Webster, four years old, and Wolf Webster, under a year old.
Travis Scott Dating and Relationship History
Travis Scott has been in an on-again, off-again relationship with Kylie Jenner for the past five years. The two were first spotted together at Coachella in 2017, just weeks after Kylie broke up with her longtime boyfriend, Tyga. Later that year, they both revealed matching butterfly tattoos, making it clear that their relationship was getting serious.
They welcomed their first child Stormi Webster in February 2018 and attended the Met Gala together in matching outfits a few months later. But in October 2019, a source told Us Weekly that the two were taking a break from their relationship while continuing to co-parent Stormi. By March of 2020, there were rumors that they had gotten back together, but sources close to the family claimed they were still just friends. But despite their undefined relationship status, they welcomed a second child in February 2022. Plus, they continue to co-parent and be photographed together frequently at award shows and public events.
Travis Scott Controversies
On November 5th, 2021, 8 people were killed in a crowd surge on the first night of Travis’s annual Astroworld festival. An additional 11 people also went into cardiac arrest, and two others later died from injuries sustained during the performance. Over 300 people were treated for injuries, and the festival was declared a mass casualty event by the Houston PD.
The deaths were attributed to poor festival planning, lack of security and medical personnel, and negligence on behalf of the festival organizers. Travis faced considerable backlash from the media for continuing his performance for over 30 minutes after the festival was declared a mass casualty event, despite seeing ambulances in the crowd and people passing out.
He told the media that he was never alerted to the severity of the situation until well after the performance was over. Still, as the headliner and producer of the festival, he took a lot of heat. He was dropped from several upcoming festival lineups and lost brand partnerships due to the controversy.
He was also hit with several lawsuits totaling over $10 billion from the victims’ families. Due to the controversy, he was forced to cancel the event’s second day and postpone his upcoming album release. While he’s recently returned to the festival circuit, his career has not been the same since.
Travis Scott Career Earnings
Travis Scott has a net worth of approximately $60 million. His money primarily comes from touring, music sales, merch, and brand deals. Aside from being a famous musician, Travis is also a highly influential celebrity, and he’s made millions endorsing brands like Nike, Mcdonald’s, and Fortnite. Mcdonald’s reportedly paid him $20 million for an endorsement deal in 2020, which featured the creation of his own Cactus Jack burger.
He also did a free virtual concert on Fortnite during the height of the pandemic that over 27 million people viewed. The free show helped him sell merch through his Cactus Jack Brand, including sneakers, clothing, action figures, and more.
Travis Scott Real Estate
In 2019, Travis purchased a 1.5-acre estate in his hometown of Houston for $14.5 million. Architect Christopher Robinson designed the modern residence, and it features three bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms, plus two swimming pools, an outdoor entertainment pavilion, and a guest house.
The following year, he also purchased a mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles, for $23.5 million and later paid just under $6 million for the property right next door. He also co-owned a Beverly Hills mansion worth $13.5 million with Kylie Jenner.
Travis Scott Famous Quotes
“You can’t buy vision, and you can’t buy aesthetic” – Travis Scott
Travis Scott Discography
- 2013 – Owl Pharaoh
- 2014 – Days Before Rodeo
- 2015 – Rodeo
- 2016 – Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight
- 2017 – Huncho Jack, Jack Hunco (with Quavo)
- 2018 – Astroworld
- 2019 – JackBoys
Travis Scott FAQs
Answer: Yes, Travis Scott is still making music, although he took a break from the public eye following the Astroworld tragedy. He delayed the release of his fourth studio album Utopia but later revealed to fans that it would be coming out in 2022. He also released a collaboration with Future and Southside from 808 Mafia called Hold That Heat, his first release since Astroworld.
Answer: No, Travis Scott is not a billionaire, but he is a multi-millionaire and one of the highest-paid rappers in the world. Travis makes money touring and releasing music and has done several lucrative brand deals that have added to his net worth. He is a songwriter and producer in his own right and has contributed to the biggest songs and albums of the 2010s. His girlfriend Kylie Jenner is a billionaire (however, this has been disputed by some).
Answer: No, Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner are not married. The two have been romantically involved since at least 2017 and have two children together. But they briefly broke up in 2020 while continuing to co-parent. While their relationship status is not entirely clear, they continue supporting one another and attending events as a family.