Travis Scott: Focus on a rap superstar and new face of Air Dior

By Delphine Roche, 

photos by Hugo Scott.

Published on 1 July 2020. Updated on 21 July 2026.

A memorable first live performance in Paris

Back in 2014, PPP, which includes the label Pigalle Paris, the artist Pain o Chokolat and the nightclub Le Pompon, were the masters of Parisian cool. The collective invited Travis Scott to showcase his work at Faust, what was then a new Left Bank club underneath the arches of the Pont Alexandre III. A thrilled crowd came to hear the first Parisian concert given by a prodigy whose name, in those days, was still only circulating by word of mouth. At that point, he had just two mixtapes to his name. The second one, Days Before Rodeo (2014), had just come out and included tracks that would eventually become classics.

Both a producer and a rapper, Travis Scott, who back then still wrote his name with a dollar sign — Travi$ Scott — was already laying the foundations of an entirely personal universe, managing every aspect by himself. Soaring and very dark, the track Drugs You Should Try It (2024) pushed the trap sound to its limits with its mad cymbals and bass and its superimposed auto-tuned vocals. On Mamacita, the Houston-born rapper’s hoarse voice navigates an irresistible rhythm. That night in Paris, he already gave the full measure of what would become his trademark — an intensity close to hysteria. Shirtless and as though possessed, Scott jumped about and harangued his fans. As the whole audience jumped with him, it seemed for a moment that a lost energy had been revived, that of the punk generation, which the audience in the hall that evening knew only through archive footage. Just like in the good old days, the police were called to break things up at the end… “Travis Scott has proved that hip-hop is the new punk,” screamed the online headlines the next day. But the story had only just begun.

A taste for extravagant staging

It wasn’t the first time Travis Scott had set foot in the City of Light. He first came once before to help Kanye West, who hired him as one of the producers on his album Yeezus (2013). Signed to the latter’s label GOOD Music, and approved by one of the Atlanta rap godfathers, T.I., the young Jacques Webster, Jr, his real name, was on the launch pad when he released his first album, Rodeo, in 2015. On the cover, the future star appeared as an action doll with dreadlocks, tattoos, heavy necklaces, leather pants and black Vans. A collector’s doll that now sells for $1,600 online. The way he shaped his image signaled some self-distancing, as though the rapper saw himself as his own marionette — authentic and completely immaterial at once.

Between the studio sessions, where he works with a level of demand bordering on obsession, according to witnesses, the stage, where he transgresses everything right down to basic security regulations — he got himself arrested for “incitation to riot” in the US, while an injured fan sued him — and the strange visual universe imbued in science fiction, Travis Scott seems to exist in a parallel world. For some, it is due to the influence of growing up with his older brother, who is severely autistic. On forums online, his fans even discuss the possibility that the artist himself may have a mild form of autism. These rumours have been fed by the way Scott came back to his native Houston since the release of his cult record Astroworld (2018).

From a simple home in Houston to the Grammys

Accompanied by a Netflix documentary, Look Mom I Can Fly, and countless interviews in the press, this homecoming was the occasion for intimate revelations of the sort that only the social media era can produce. We discovered his entire family, including his grandmother – filmed at her home in a modest Houston suburb – and his proud parents, who’ve always supported their son. Yet, Scott’s childhood was not always sunshine and rainbows. His mother was partially disabled and worked for AT&T, while his musician father played the drums professionally but was often out of work. Travis Scott talked about his brother in an interview with Rolling Stone: “His temper is sometimes very strong. Like, I’ll be asleep and, boom, Marcus will start going crazy. Jump on me. We’ll be walking and he’ll push me. But that’s my brother, man. I bring these kids up [on stage in his concerts] out of heart, because I know my brother would freak out if one of his favorite artists invited him up. I’m thinking of Marcus every time.” 

After Rodeo and its memorable single, Antidote, which hit no. 3 in the charts the day it came out, the albums, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight and Astroworld saw Scott honing his artistic vision. On the cover of Birds, he appeared in a sophisticated image by the photographer Nick Knight that showed him as a winged creature, his face hidden behind his dreadlocks in a curl of smoke. Of the album’s 14 tracks, history has particularly retained Goosebumps, supported by one of Scott’s best performances as a producer as well as a guest appearance from Kendrick Lamar. After immediately going platinum, the song became an anthem that Scott once played no less than 14 times in a row at one of his concerts.

An ambitious artist

The antithesis of all those machos with machine guns waging gang wars and all the other stuff that has traditionally been part of rap’s not-so-discreet charm, the Houston native cultivates an aesthetic ambition and a sophistication that naturally make him comparable to A$AP Rocky. What distinguishes him from the New Yorker, however, is his ability to generate coherent fictional worlds, encompassing everything from the sound to the visuals, in which he himself becomes a character from science fiction or from comic books. Having frequently expressed his desire to pile up the Grammy Awards, Scott doesn’t seek to play the hipster surrounded by beautiful models but rather to become a new contemporary mogul, a game changer, like Jay-Z or Kanye West.

This thirst for recognition and influence began to make itself apparent with the release of the seminal album Astroworld in 2018. At the same time as the press announced his relationship with the youngest daughter of theKardashian clan, Kylie Jenner, who was already a billionaire with 177 million followers on Instagram. As one half of this perfect couple, Scott brought artistic credibility to the woman who would soon become the mother of his daughter, Stormi Webster, while Jenner in return offered him enormous publicity.

New face of the Air Dior capsule collection

Astroworld announced a change in scale for the rapper-producer. Counting no less than 15 guest stars and ten producers, from Drake, The Weeknd, Frank Ocean and Quavo to the psychedelic rock group Tame Impala, the album took its name from an amusement park that had been an important feature in Scott’s childhood in Houston, and whose closure he deeply mourned. At his Pharaonic concerts, he installed a giant rollercoaster on which he took off amid laser special effects and other spectacular pyrotechnics. With Sicko Mode, Highest in the Room, and others, his videos also began to resemble existing sci-fi blockbusters with their use of FX trickery and 3D animation to bring Scott’s personal universe to life.

During the lockdown in 2020, he even gave a concert for users of the online game Fortnite starring his own digital avatar, which took the form of a more sophisticated version of the action doll from Rodeo. A year before the release of Astroworld, he also founded his own label, Cactus Jack Records, which is behind one of the most exciting and innovative hip-hop projects of recent years, the collective album Jack Boys, which includes, in addition to Scott, his protégés Sheck Wes, Don Toliver and the late Pop Smoke. 

Gifted with a unique visual style, Scott naturally cultivates impeccable taste in sartorial matters, and carefully curates his fashion collaborations. Muse for the Air Dior capsule collection, he brings to life the garments designed by the artistic director Kim Jones in collaboration with Jordan Brand – the brand founded by Michael Jordan, an icon of sportswear and streetwear. “The Air Jordan 1 High OG Dior sneaker is entirely made in Italy,” explains Jones. “Its construction is just as soigné as one of our bags. This capsule collection transcends sportswear through the art of tailoring. It brings the expertise of Dior together with the sportswear style of the 80s. We were inspired by the looks of Michael Jordan, who off court only wore suits. That’s why we’ve used luxury fabrics such as silk and cashmere.” Eagerly awaited, the Air Jordan 1 High OG is guaranteed to produce just the same hysteria as its muse does on the concert stage.