It’s been little over a month since the Astroworld tragedy on November 5, and now the man at the center of it all—rapper Travis Scott—is finally speaking up about that fateful day.
Complex reports that the “Anecdote” artist sat down with Charlamagne tha God where he discussed, among many things, his intent behind the interview, how and when he found out things took a turn for the worst on that day and whether or not he believes undue responsibility has been placed on him.
During the nearly hourlong interview, Scott admitted to being on an “emotional rollercoaster” in the aftermath of the event. Explaining why he wanted to sit down and talk, he told Charlamagne:
“I don’t personally have an intent. I just feel like something happened and I feel like I just needed a way to kind of communicate. When families are grieving, it’s fans that are experiencing something, it’s fans that came to the show—I feel like I just have—I’ve always been that person to always see things through with the people that share experiences with me. And you know, things happen and I just kind of— It’s been such a time and I’ve just been trying to figure things out.”
Charlamagne then asked when the “Goosebumps” rapper found out things were as bad as they were. Scott responded:
“It wasn’t really until, like, minutes until the press conference [that] I figured out exactly what happened. Even after the show [I was] just kind of hearing things but I didn’t know the exact details until minutes before the press conference. And even at that moment, you’re kind of just like ‘wait, what?’ Like, you just went through something and you’re just like ‘what?’”
Scott went on to explain how he didn’t find out anyone died until minutes before the press conference, never heard any screams of help from the crowd, and that if he had, he would’ve stopped the show. He also defended the culture of raging at his shows, saying that the overall energy is about “letting go and having fun,” not about “harm.”
Later, when asked whether or not he believed more pressure and responsibility had been placed on him than anyone else, Scott responded:
“Yeah, I mean I’m the face of the festival. I’m an artist, so yeah. The media, they want to put it on me but at the end of the day it’s like, I don’t think it’s moreso about that. I think it’s moreso about stepping up to figure out what the problem is and I can take that. I can take stepping up to figure out what the problem is. I can take stepping into figuring out what the solution [is] and it never happening again. ‘Cuz that’s what I generally want to do in general—even just for my community.”
He concluded, “The whole idea for why I brought this festival to the city was to show that Houston was something different and show that there’s all different kinds of lives, different kinds of energy. And just bring that morale to the city, to just bring that energy to the city. I definitely want to figure out how could we fix this in the future [and] what could we do to change these things.”
To watch Travis Scott’s full interview, head on over to youtube.com.