Travis Scott w/Sheck Wes

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In the span of just a year or so, Houston rapper Travis Scott signed deals with Epic Records, Kanye West’s GOOD Music and T.I.’s Grand Hustle label. It’s easy to see what they all heard in him. Few rappers have demonstrated a better grasp of the rap radio zeitgeist than Scott, whose pairs grippy hooks with moody, sometimes avant-garde production. That approach paid off handsomely on his 2016 sophomore album Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, which featured collaborations with Young Thug, The Weeknd and Toro y Moi among others, and it paid off even more on this year’s Astroworld, a critical breakthrough that brought Scott even more respect. The website Uproxx crowned the album the best of 2018, claiming that it “single-handedly put to bed any notion of trap music not being a respectable music genre.” Scott cemented his star status with a controversial Super Bowl Halftime cameo, disappointing supporters of Colin Kaepernick by performing at an event many of rap’s A-listers had blacklisted.