Travis Scott’s house is kind of a mess. Not in the way you’d expect from a constantly working, constantly traveling, constantly blunt-smoking 25-year-old rapper-producer. The ultramodern McMansion, looming over the modest bungalows on a quiet block in Los Angeles’ Beverly Grove neighborhood, is just filled with so much cool, interesting, expensive shit, it would be impossible for even the most skilled interior decorator to jigsaw it all together.
“This is nothing,” says Scott, pulling from a raggedy Backwoods blunt on the sofa as his tour DJ, Chase B, and a friend play a heated game of NBA 2K. “You should see my house in Houston.”
The two-story foyer is clogged with towering stacks of limited-edition sneaker boxes, almost all from Nike, with which Scott recently designed an Air Force 1 featuring interchangeable Velcro swooshes. In between two shoe piles is a 5-foot-tall cardboard sculpture of a demon head, which Scott says he made as a teen — a goth touch matching the cross-shaped Black Sabbath rug and the twin gargoyle statuettes on the coffee table. A sunny room overlooking the driveway is filled with paint, brushes, easels and abstract paintings by Scott and his friends (“I like to just wake up and go splat”). The recording studio, next to a screening room, features another one of Scott’s sculptures — a terrifying, H.R. Giger-esque creature — and a collage of scenes cut out from porn magazines (Scott just chuckles when asked about it). The living room overflows with colorful Pop art (a plush Warhol Brillo box; a massive Murakami rainbow-flower floor cushion). On the floor, seemingly forgotten in a half-opened box, is a platinum plaque for one of his many hit singles. “I keep most of them in the garage,” mumbles Scott. “I don’t really like to talk about all the stuff I do.”
There’s a sense that this house, with all its curios, isn’t meant for stunting, or even for sleeping — it’s for inspiring Scott, the mad scientist who glues it all together, to endlessly work, create, repeat. At least, when he’s here — and as the many wilting tropical plants around the house show, that isn’t often.
During this mid-December weekend, Scott will perform for nearly 20,000 fans while strapped into a giant flying mechanical bird; hang out with his family (in town from Houston, his hometown, which he visits frequently) and with his rumored girlfriend, Kylie Jenner, who is reportedly pregnant with his child; and fly to Paris to unveil a limited-edition, leather-packaged compilation album on vinyl, released in collaboration with Yves Saint Laurent. He’s also putting the final touches on Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho, his collaborative album with Migos star Quavo, which will be released in a few days and later debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200; and readying his third album, Astroworld, expected in the first quarter of 2018. Nearly every night, he’s in the studio until dawn.
“I’ve been on this schedule for the past six, seven years,” says Scott. “I got too much shit to do, too much ground to cover. My whole life, I ain’t been on vacation.”
Where will he go when he finally gets some time off?
“Shit,” he replies. “Heaven — hopefully.”
Continue reading this story at Billboard.