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Since the tragedy at Astroworld in November that claimed the lives of 10 people, Travis Scott has been experiencing a “roller-coaster” of emotion.
On Thursday, Charlamagne Tha God shared a lengthy interview with Scott, the rapper’s first since the tragedy.
“I’ve been on different types of emotions, an emotional roller-coaster, I mean,” Scott said. “It gets so hard because I always feel connected with my fans. I went through something and I feel like fans went through something and people’s parents went through something. And it really hurts. It hurts the community, it hurts the city. There’s been a lot of thoughts, a lot of feelings, a lot of grieving, and just trying to wrap my head around it.”
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Talking about the terrible events, Scott claimed that he didn’t actually have a sense of the scope of what was going on while he was onstage.
“I didn’t know the exact details until minutes before the press conference [after my set],” he said. “And even at that moment you’re like, ‘Wait, what?’”
He added, “People pass out, things happen at concerts, but something like that…”
Scott also pushed back on claims that he ignored calls of distress from the crowd, which would have prompted him to stop the concert.
“It’s so crazy because I’m that artist, too — any time you can hear something like that, you want to stop the show,” he said. “You want to make sure fans get the proper attention they need. Any time I could see anything like that, I did. I stopped it a couple times to just make sure everybody was OK. And I really just go off the fans’ energy as a collective — call and response. I just didn’t hear that.”
He explained that the various elements of the concert, from the music to the lights and pyro effects, made it difficult from his vantage point to understand what was really going on.
“You can only help what you can see and whatever you’re told, whenever they tell you to stop, you stop,” Scott said.
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Charlamagne also asked Scott about criticism of the “raging” culture often present at his concerts; past incidents have led to his arrest for encouraging dangerous situations with crowds.
“That’s something I’ve been working on for a while, is creating these experiences and trying to show these experiences are happening in a safe environment,” Scott said. “Us as artists, we trust professionals for when things happen that people can leave safely. And this night was just like a regular show, it felt like to me, as far as the energy. It didn’t feel like, you know…people didn’t show up there just to be harmful. People just showed up to have a good time and then something unfortunate happened and I think we really just got to figure out what that was.”
He continued, “‘Raging’…there’s not a textbook definition. But in concerts we’ve grown it to be just the experience of fun. It’s not about just…harm. It’s not about that. It’s about letting go and having fun, help others and love each other.”