[louder]

Originally Posted by Severian

At first I was just like, “what.”

Felt like a TON of build up for a very lazy, unexciting project. “Stargazing” just meanders along, and that was the first single!

Was supposed to be his big filmic masterpiece, but felt like “Oh, more stuff that vaguely sounds like a mashup of Outkast and Kanye if they were both on Thorazine and too tired to make any noise.”

Further listens revealed its strengths. “Pl-pl-playin’ for keeps!” Little hooks like that get stuck in my head and I want to hear them ahain and again.

But make no mistake, it’s still not god-tier rap music. It’s just successfully realized psychedelic trap that bumps. And the album does drag, and is overlong, and is inconsistent, but the good songs thump like crazy.

He’s still not at the level of Kanye or Kendrick or Frank Ocean (that’s the holy trinity, by the way) in terms of constructing grand kaleidoscopic artistic statements, but he’s getting there.

I went back and listened to Rodeo too. That album has heat as well. I like it much more than Birds of the Trap. Rodeo was underrated, and its sound was lit — if derivative.

Basically in the land of Migos, Travis *feels* like the king. But he’ll have to do a whole lot more to truly run the kingdom.

I agree with you.. I don't think he has it in him to be at Kanye's/Frank's/Kendrick's level.. but he's definitely better than Migos, Drake and the likes. AstroWorld is much better than Birds.