While
Lady Gaga was working the avant side of pop, hip-hop was doing the same thing without a true figurehead. Artists from
Kid Cudi to
A$AP Mob were coming at the genre from all sorts of new angles, but with their feet firmly in the rap camp; then producer
Travis Scott came along, sounding like
Chief Keef but with a much broader brush, offering an attractive version of acid rap that landed him on
Kanye West's
GOOD Music label with a debut album that's so 2015 it features the ultra-hip trifecta of
Future,
the Weeknd, and
Justin Bieber. Make those three a Venn diagram and
Scott is the man in the middle, wonderfully weird and as stylish-sounding as the first two, and yet with a slick appeal that crosses over like
Bieber, which is the biggest problem for detractors: it's all for show with no filling. Still, with lines like "Always kept my city on me like it was a Swatch" and "My dick longer than a Pringle box" over beats that honor and match edgy acts like
Death Grips (the raw "Piss on Your Grave" featuring
Kanye West) and
Future (who appears alongside
2 Chainz on the sprawling highlight "3500"),
Rodeo is an absurd wonder that thankfully works. That's up to and including
Bieber,
Young Thug, and
Scott's bedroom brain-burner "Maria I'm Drunk," which is the ultra sheen of
Taylor Swift with the lust of
Miguel experienced via shrooms. "Wasted" sounds like
Juicy J did an album for
Stones Throw, "Flying High" with
Toro y Moi borrows some of
Slave's "Slide" so the indie party people get an anthem, then the very big "90210" travels across decades' worth of film soundtrack styles while sampling the late
Pimp C as
T.I. narrates. Weird that
T.I. doesn't rap, and weirder still that
Scott barely produces on this album, handing it over to returning and like-minded collaborators like
Metro Boomin,
Ultra$ound, and
Mike Dean. His executive producer credit, however, is on point as the aesthetics of his early work are all here, and with "We designed our love, around these drugs" being the album's most profound lyrical moment, he may not be
Nas, but he may be
Warhol. As
Kanye and
Gaga try to bridge the gap between pop and art, this artist thrives in the chasm. Like
Warhol said, "I love plastic, I want to be plastic," and with
Rodeo,
Travis Scott becomes a designer drug. [A Deluxe Edition included two bonus tracks: "OK Alright" and "Never Catch Me."] ~ David Jeffries