The first of many stage dives during night one of Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD MSG tour stop took place around the 15-minute mark of his headlining set.

Travis had just taken up position on the main stage, after entering the arena on the center platform by the ferris wheel/carousel that you’ve undoubtedly seen all over Instagram since the tour started. As he riffed with longtime DJ and right-hand man Chase B, a fan casually streaked across the stage behind him and hit a triple Lindy into the throbbing pit. Travis barely reacted, using the moment to announce, “Welcome to a Travis Scott show, ravers only.” Minutes later, Travis himself helped a fan get on stage to do the same thing.

I’ve seen the Travis Scott Show in New York several times before. It was great when he toured Days Before Rodeo alongside Young Thug and immediately made a case for having the best live show in rap. It was great when Rodeo dropped and he did three consecutive nights at Gramercy Theater. Hell, he even turned a Nike industry event upside down when More Life dropped with “Portland” as its crown jewel. But none of those performances could compare to the spectacle of seeing him at the Mecca for not one but two sold out shows, all on his own. ASTROWORLD at The Garden was The Travis Scott Show in IMAX (the real deal nine story shit, not those cheap facsimiles) and watching La Flame actualize the ambitions he’s vocalized for the last four years was a thrill unto itself.

Much has been made of ASTROWORLD the album being a watershed moment in Travis’ career. A blockbuster tour to supplement a blockbuster album seemed like a foregone conclusion in the afterglow of delivering a top five (three? two?) project of the year. But there was a general dubiousness over whether the rowdy reputation of the Rodeo would translate well as it jumped from standing room only to an actual arena. One got a light sense of restrained frustration when he had previously opened up for the likes of Rihanna and Kendrick in arenas—big looks, but still out of his element.

As Travis strapped himself in a legit carousel to perform “Carousel,” I felt shades of the Glow in the Dark Tour

The most important thing about the the ASTROWORLD tour is that Travis conforms the arena setting to his standards, with a floor completely devoid of seating. “It ain’t a mosh pit if ain’t no injuries” after all. There was enough energy to make the ragers who weren’t on the floor want to “stage dive from the nosebleeds.” Security knew better than to obstruct any stage-rushers: that type of action was welcomed and enabled. The fans showed up and out—their excitement at seeing Cactus Jack playing in the big leagues was palpable. They came to rage and fuck the club up—on time even.

I’ve never seen any venue, let alone the fucking Garden, as packed and engaged at 7:30 as they were for Sheck Wes, who barely leaves the rest of his fellow openers any shine to work with. Travis reciprocated that love, both through interaction and the setlist. Early staples in his discography like “Upper Echelon” or “Drugs You Should Try It” got ample runtime, jockeying for setlist love amidst his growing collection of hits and crowd pleasers. (It's crazy that a show that left nothing lacking still could've made room to include 'Oh My Dis Side,' or 'Who? What!')

The rides that play up the tour's Six Flags theme are there for concert goers to enjoy as much as they are a set design flex. Lucky floor attendees are even offered rides during the performance. The tour design is far from a gimmick. Instagram stories don’t do justice to the ways in which Travis and tour creative director Mike Carson emptied the clip on their imaginations. It's an experience that rewards the whole audience from floor to nosebleeds. If you stand in the right spot as his rollercoaster carries him across the arena floor while the video screen conjures a hell portal, it looks like the cart is escaping the Eye of Sauron. The LED “Wish You Were Here” screen descending during the opening notes of “RIP Screw” almost made me shed a tear, G.

Travis teased his live show ideas almost as long as he teased the album—the result is a rollercoaster that makes room for some of the more mild-mannered songs in his oeuvre while still maintaining so much energy that a special guest is nice, but far from needed. As he strapped himself in a legit carousel to perform “Carousel,” or conjured an inflatable moon man the size of Godzilla, I felt shades of the Glow in the Dark Tour, when Kanye first truly displayed his affinity for theater and cinematic spectacle with a show narrative about being lost in space, complete with a talking ship. Watershed third album coincidence aside, Travis Scott is firmly out of his mentor’s shadow, operating in his own galaxy, but charting a similar course. Seems like the life he needed isn't just nearer, it's here.

There are few emerging artists more polarizing than Travis Scott. After releasing a solid buzz-building free studio album, Days Before Rodeo, last year, Scott follows it up with his long-awaited major debut, Rodeo, a master class in the pyramid scheming of rap industry politics.

There are few emerging artists more polarizing than Travis Scott, he of the dual deals (Grand Hustle as a rapper and G.O.O.D. Honey singh all mp3 songs download zip file. Music as a producer) and the punk rock antics, a Kanye West progeny who is continuously changing shape. One minute he’s Kid Cudi, the next he’s Young Thug. The rager has made a living parlaying aesthetics into musical capital, but there’s value in his ability to repackage styles and sounds into something that requires little to no unpacking. After releasing a solid buzz-building free studio album, Days Before Rodeo, last year, Scott follows it up with his long-awaited major debut, Rodeo, a master class in the pyramid scheming of rap industry politics.

Travis Scott studied carefully at the Kanye West School of Maximalism, where sounds are expensive and songs are sumptuous with rich, interlocking details and meticulously selected guests. Since releasing his debut EP, Owl Pharaoh, in 2013 (and perhaps even before) he’s been honing a sixth sense for emphasizing gravitas. His greatest trick is making songs feel big and important. But Scott has cobbled together a composite identity to compensate for lacking his own. He’s quickly earned a rep as a shameless biter, an aesthetic bender with no regard for ownership or authorship—a claim given credence by Rodeo’s second single, the Swae Lee-imitating 'Antidote'.

This has become the enduring criticism of Scott’s work so far: That he’s a skilled impersonator posing as a creative, a mime playing puppetmaster. (There are at least three alleged reports of creative theft, which led to this takedown in Deadspin.) But this narrative overshadows the more glaring holes in his music. Travis Scott isn’t good at rapping—he often bawls out clunky phrases that dawdle into banality ('Always hit the gas like I broke wind')—and his self-proclaimed status as an auteur isn’t dictated by his own talent, but by the talent of those surrounding him. 'Who do I owe? Nigga, no one,' he boasts on opener 'Pornography', when he’s actually deeply indebted to those in or adjacent to the Kanye Think Tank and the others he’s wrangled based on that affiliation.

One thing Scott does very well is squirm through openings onto bigger platforms, which is a talent in and of itself. He is one of rap’s premier young capitalists, an opportunist deft in the use of social currency, turning a friendship with Illroots creator Mike Waxx into a relationship with T.I. and finagling a meeting with Kanye West out of networking with his engineer, Anthony Kilhoffer. The strength of his catalog is almost exclusively dependent on the strength of his connections.

Rodeo is the culmination of Travis Scott’s amassed networking efforts. Twilight saga breaking dawn part 2 subtitles. The credits are a Who’s Who of the big names in rap and its neighboring genres: Narrated by T.I., it tells a nebulous tale of Scott’s meteoric rise and the perils of fame. The lush and often gorgeous production comes courtesy of current league leaders in rap hit-making Metro Boomin, Sonny Digital, and Zaytoven, with add-ons and attachments from a host of heavy hitters like Mike Dean, DJ Dahi, Hit-Boy, Wondagurl, Southside, FKi, and TM88. There’s standout work from Frank Dukes and Allen Ritter. Sometimes, like on 'Oh My Dis Side' or '90210', beats jack-knife in two, revealing stunningly posh second acts. Sometimes, like on the nearly eight minute epic '3500', they have shimmering piano outros. The Pharrell-produced 'Flying High' fastens a surging, slow-rolling coda onto a wailing beat. The sound is a kind of big-budget alt-trap with lots of accents and gloss, like if Future’s Dirty Sprite 2 was executive produced by 2010 Kanye, and it often pays big dividends.

Many of those dividends, though, feel as though they arrive in spite of Scott. He’s easily outmaneuvered by charismatic rappers of note Juicy J, Quavo, and 2 Chainz ('Crib bigger than your imagination'). Pop singers the Weeknd and Justin Bieber both steal the show with singsong rap-like verses on their respective features. Even Chief Keef and Toro Y Moi make their presences heavily felt, upstaging the Houston rapper in the process. Travis Scott’s verses are often without substance and chock full of choppy cadences, and songs without guests, especially 'I Can Tell', are undone by the monotony.

To be fair, Scott isn’t without his merits. He is most effective when he harshly distorts his vocals to create texture, and in the company of others he can serve as a welcome change of pace. He has an ear for programming. But RodeoVirtual tennis game. ’s best songs—'Maria I’m Drunk' and 'Nightcrawler'—mostly succeed because they overcome his contributions. He's still a middling talent, and comes across as rebellious youngster that’s been given the keys to dad’s Porsche and simply asked not to wreck it.