CLASSIC MOMENT: Travis Scott performs "ANTIDOTE" on Jimmy Kimmel
Travis Scott’s performance on Jimmy Kimmel last night was epic, classic and captured a pivotal moment in American culture.
Even as a middle aged, classical music loving, white guy, I just plain loved it. I felt like it was kind of a maturation point of sorts. Everything has grown up. No more Johnny Carson, now we have Kimmel -and yet its the same. No more Sugar Hill Gang or Run DMC, -now we have Travis Scott and yet it’s the same. Things are cooling. Things are chill. And Scott is here to emanate cool and chill and everything groovy.
The dude just rocks his style. The stage was epic. Like John Wayne riding off into a classic, Western-themed, Monument Valley sunset, Scott rides his wave of megga-pop hip- hopularity. Eschewing the need for some kind of funky hip hop branding like “T-Dawg” or T-RAVIS, Scott is just Scott; TRAVIS is just “Travis” and that’s got to be good enough. Just be real; be yourself. The lyrics don’t try to cover anything up either; it’s down and dirty, nitty gritty reality of life as a young black man, N-word supahstar in Hollywood.
There is a lesson in this: accepting ourself, loving ourself and having faith that it’s all good, can take us to the dreamland of the Hollywood Hills that Scott’s lyrical journey appropriates. No, its not sanitized, it’s not for kids. It’s raw and real. He reminds me of a spiritual prize-fighter boxing un-seen opponents in a rodeo-ring. He says that people think "he’s satan, he’s kicking photographers off the stage ‘cause he doesn't like how they’re snapping his angle." But it’s not flesh and blood he’s fighting, it’s all kinds of societal evils that no one needs to be reminded of; evils that have been in the news all too often. He doesn't have the answers. He’s not the Pope and isn't trying to be a Pied Piper, he’s just making music, talking about the reality of his world.
And in the end, in a supremely poetic moment, taking a cue from another Pop superstar, (Bono) he goes deep. He goes inward. After slugging it out, after rocking it, he gets down- literally. He sits and emotes. He moans and groans and maybe in that space “ho” becomes “hope.
”Whatever it is or was. It is good. Not just that...it’s all good.