Travis Scottis addressing the tragic deaths and injuries that occurred at his Astroworld Festival in a new interview, and claims the night felt “like a regular show.”
The 30-year-old rapper sat down with Charlamagne Tha God for his first interview since hisAstroworld Festival in Houstonlast month, which left10 people deadand hundreds injured. During the interview, Scott explained that he didn’t hear any screams for help when the crowd surge began.
“Anytime you can hear something like that, you want to stop the show, you want to make sure fans get the proper attention they need. And anytime I could see anything like that, I did,” Scott said. “I stopped it like a couple times to just make sure everybody was okay. I really just go off of the fans' energy as a collective and I just didn’t hear that.”
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“It’s 50,000 people … you got lights, you got sound, you got [pyrotechnics], you got your in-ears, you got the band, there’s all types of stuff going on,” he continued. “Everything kind of just sounds the same. At the end of the day, you just hear music.”
There were approximately 50,000 attendees in the Astroworld audience, many of whom attempted to rush the stage when Scott’s set began, causing countless people to lose consciousness or be trampled.
During the interview, the rapper clarified to Charlamagne that, as an artist who has high energy shows and encourages what he calls “raging,” the term is not one that he personally associates with harm.
Travis Scott.Amy Harris/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
“In concerts, we’ve grown [raging] to be just the experience of having fun. It’s not about harm. It’s about just letting go and having fun, you know, help others and love each other. The show isn’t just rambunctious for an hour, that’s not what it is,” he claimed.
“People didn’t show up there to be harmful. People just showed up to have a good time and then something unfortunate happened and I think we really just gotta figure out what that was,” Scott said.
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Travis Scott performs during 2021 Astroworld Festival.Erika Goldring/WireImage
“It’s something I’ve been working on for a while, of just creating these experiences and trying to show the experiences happening in a safe environment,” he told Charlamagne. “As artists, we trust professionals to make sure things happen and people leave safely. And this night was just like a regular show, it felt like to me as far as the energy.”
Scott has spoken about “raging” before, and during a 2015 interview, he encouraged fans to “find anything you’re gonna use to consume to get you lit” at his concerts and listed various substances, including drugs, water, orange juice and alcohol.
He was previously arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in 2015 after encouraging fans at Lollapalooza to climb over security barricades and rush the stage. The performance was shut down within five minutes after dozens of fans joined him on stage, perChicago’s ABC7.
Two years later, he was arrested for allegedlyinciting a riot during a concert in Arkansas, and later pled guilty to disorderly conduct.
“Not even just me, but you don’t even want other artists to have to go and take a part of that trauma, you don’t want concertgoers to be a part of that fear,” said Scott. “You want them to feel safe.”
In the filings, Scott and his company “generally deny the allegations” made in the lawsuits, and “respectfully request that the claims against these Defendants be dismissed with prejudice,” the response read. “And that these Defendants be granted such other and further relief, both at law and in equity, to which they are entitled.”
Rolling Stonereported that, in their own responses, Live Nation, its subsidiary ScoreMore, Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation and several of the festival’s promoters denied all allegations against them.
source: people.com
