Out of all of Kanye West’s recent notable understudies, Travis Scott is quickly becoming the outright fan favorite. Last year’s Rodeo got hit with some mediocre reviews from critics but irrespectively garnered him a lot of traction with his increasingly cult-like fan base who are visibly obsessed with the braid waving, stage diving 24-year-old. He even snagged himself a seat at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 with none other than “Antidote” – what most would have considered to be the song of last summer. To make matters even better, the Houston native played the warm-up role for both The Weeknd and Rihanna on their respective stadium tours. This tidal wave of momentum was the vehicle that has now brought us to his sophomore offering, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight.
The album’s title – which was not exactly approved by the real Brian McKnight – is Scott’s way of expressing his disdain for not following one’s imaginative ambitions and exposing the social trap that is thrown on today’s young creatives. Although he doesn’t mention such a concept explicitly on any of the 14 lowercase-accented songs, he does, however, exude this colossal creative output that makes for some superbly put-together songs. This ear-for-song orchestrating is perhaps his closest shared quality with sensei ‘Ye and boy does it ever shine through straight off the rip.
“the ends,” with André 3000, is a sonic snapshot of growing up in their individual hometowns. Neither Travis nor André drop overly quotable lyrical miracles but the way the beat sways between different drum patterns with Scott’s Auto-Tune following suit is really something to behold. OZ, Vinylz, Daxz and WondaGurl are credited for the instrumentation but judging, by the way, Travis’ cadences are easily heard, you can tell he undoubtedly assumed the role of a maestro. As you listen to the LP in its duration, you can envision Scott standing in front of a room full of tier one producers and conducting an array of haunting keys, sharp synths and of course trap drums. Lots of trap drums.
It isn’t only the album’s beats that surrender themselves to Scott’s liking, the 13 features all carry a similar intonation that appears to be curated by the man himself. He proves here, more than ever, that he has the true ability to use featured guests to his precise liking instead of just getting emailed a comfort zone type verse here and there. The most visible example is Kendrick Lamar’s verse on “goosebumps” in which K. Dot goes into full Martian mode by rapping “Put the pussy on a pedestal/Put the pussy on a high horse/That pussy to die for/That pussy to die for” like he’s trying to hit the seventh octave. Not saying that Kendrick would never rap like this with anyone else but it’s clear Travis squares the circles for most of the artists he works with. He catches Kid Cudi in rare god-like form on “through the late night” – he even gets Cassie to show and prove with sultry vocals on “sdp interlude.”
There isn’t a ton of lyrical progression for La Flame on this album though, as he’s still throwing out head scratchers like “Hit my palace/Stroke my cactus” (hidden underneath the captivating sonics of “through the late night”) and the lame ball flossing like “Tryna’ text my accountant/Ain’t no service in the mountains” heard on “biebs in the trap,” but the soothing digitized finish and woven through the most polished contemporary drums in Hip Hop, it’s truly hard to hate. That puzzling beauty is the best part about Scott’s music and obviously, the element that connects best with fans; who have already shot it up to the top spot on Billboard. Straight up.
Must. Be. Joking….
I don’t know what to say about this album or this review. I just don’t get it. I wanna like Travis Scott, really, I do. I’ve tried. I’ve tried to play this album through multiple times. I’ve really given it a fair shake and I just cannot get with it. Straight up, this album is for kids. It’s almost like Scott just found our about drugs. Every track sounds like a kid who just made it to the part with a stash of his parents Xanax, excited to share it with his friends and talk about how high they are. Honestly, sure, the song construction is something here, but the beats themselves? Average. The lyrics? Average to below average. And the non-stop auto tune? Borrrrring. The best part of this album is the title itself, which is probably the best album title of this year… and he took that from Quavo. Is this album as fun to listen to as Stremmlife 2? No. Is it as bizarrely interesting as Jeffrey? No! So does this album honestly deserve a 3.9 rating? No. Yeah, birds in the trap sing McKnight… but only the kids are gonna be playing Travis Scott.
^^^ give this man a grammy
shremmlife 2??? was garbage..
Yo man! Stremmlife2 was definitely junk! No doubt. I just had more fun listening to it than this! Did you really have a better time listening to Birds in the Trap??? Honestly tho?
Man fuck this dude and his shitty ass drink coaster album. Birds in the trap sing bullshit ass lyrics
Hahah young thug and travis got better ratings than de le soul. How does that make you feel hipster nerds?
It made me feel terrible. It made me feel like HipHopDX is a joke.
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Although I thought Rodeo was a little better than Birds, I think it deserves a 5/5 rating. This is the best of the year.
What??? Eli, come on. Stop it. A 5 is a perfect album. Good kid m.A.A.d city only got 4.5. You even say yourself, Rodeo was better – so let’s say in your high school world, that’s a 5. That means this would have to be, like, a 4.5. But it’s not. It’s 3.5 at best and that’s being extremely generous. I think the site you’re looking for is at xxl Peace out.
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Great album – sonically…not super lyrical by any means, but you have to appreciate the composition from start to end
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How dare you give Isaiah Rashad a 0.1 higher rating than this?! This is bullshit! This reviewer and his review are jokes! Birds blows Isaiah Crapshad’s sleepy album out of the water! This is lit, turn up!
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Isaiah Rashad is a million times better than Travis I-bite-every-rapper-since-the-dawn -of-time Scott. FOH
no words
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5/5
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Real rap and true hip hop died in the early 2000’s. I’m not sure what this shit is, but I know it fucking sucks
Some of the songs are good, some are great… But it’s definitely better than rodeo…
The album is an instant classic of you dislike Travis you won’t like his music simple
I loved this album turn up music. i would say 4/5, but for sure it is not better than rodeo
Travis Scott’s second album “BITTSM” a of contemporary hip-hop and a little bit of modern rock. With songs like biebs in the trap having beatsbyNAV on the feature and summer anthems like through the late night having kid cudi harmonize in the background making a Midas touch to the song.
In this his second studio album he had people like Andre3000, and 21savage on outside, and Kendrick Lamar on goosebumps thus making he album a classic, which made the top spot on billboards 200 which would be the young artist from Houston TX first time .
Need i mention, it had producers by the likes of murda beatz, wondagurl…etc on it
In conclusion, it’s a great listen and diserve all 4 golden stars
Another day another weed plate.
Wowwww
2/5. Mediocre rapper/producer with a new decent songs
2/5. Mediocre rapper/ producer who doesn’t produce much and cannot spit a dope verse to save his life
Go listen to his cypher verse when he was XXL freshman, then rethink your comment.
fire
you just don’t get travi$ style. he is still a kid thats young as fuck. you must not have listened through the album as many times as you say because this dude changes up the autotune or voice like 3 or 4 times a song, which is way more than almost all other rap albums these days. its also not just changing up the tone but also the flow which he does multiple times. his lyrics can seem basic because he’s not all about bars. he writes shit that all people can understand and follow the flow. they are lyrics to make everyone follow along and follow the same vibe. and these beats are unique af so you whack but i see where you coming from at some points. some people can’t feel travi$ music but they just don’t understand it and i feel bad for them. the people playing travis are gonna be having a good fucking time listening to this shit. stremmlife 2 is trash
also quit comparing this shit to hip hop that died in the early days. this shit isn’t meant to be like that. travis is his own genre if you really think about it. he isn’t striving to be like those rappers that played the repetitive beats and stayed monotone spittin bars. while i love all the classic shit, these two aren’t in the same category so quit comparing the two.
It’s good but nothing compared to rodeo. This is more trap than rodeo. Rodeo was a good mix of cloud and trap. Still good though!
The Album is really great… Although it isn´t as good as rodeo was. Sonically its top notch, song-writing great too… Lyrics that just need to fit the mood and atmosphere that the song tries to convey, which is more than enough for me. So if you go into this album not awaiting the sharpest lyricist, but expecting bomb ass music you´re totally right with this project
I gave it a 5 to combat the people that are hating. I would realistically say it’s a 4/5. Probably one of my fav albums of the year so far. Contrarily, I think this album is a little better than Rodeo in a sense that it is improved and upgraded. It’s different, but pleasant as well.
this album is better than rodeo. i never listened to rodeo over and over like i do this album.
Great for the house party.
Anyone who actually likes this album is purely a victim of marketing, hype or whatever online trend that all your friends seem to be following. One out of five. Constant auto-tune… are you kidding? Musically it does not even make sense, anyone with any knowledge of musical theory would laugh at this.
I rate this album 4/5 purely for the fact that if your not listening to this content for lyrical precision it’s perfect. The album is cohesive and smooth sounding, definitely better than rodeo in the sense of it sounds more upgraded. It’s easy to play this album all the way through and start it over.
Album was fire I really don’t know who can dislike this project…probably people who’ve been with one girl all their lives who wear polo like it’s still hot can only say that Birds is wack…it’s not better than Rodeo but it is still better than 98% of the albums that released this year. Travis sound is unmatched and he is the voice of the new wave.
Great but not as great as rodeo was
By far sickest flow of 2016! The music production which was all by Travis Scott (or he at least coproduced) was unreal. I haven’t heard anything better all of 2016 and the only album in my opinion that compares to it is Chance’s coloring book album. I don’t understand why this album isn’t at least a 4 stars. His Rodeo album was by far the best, but he changed it up a bit and reached out to so many artists to feature in it. He’s so far ahead of our time and everybody is taking it for granted.
Gave this lp a chance. Could have been better… Mixing engineer was a rookie or very high. Very cheap recording, sounds like it wasnt even mastered. Very unprofessional.