Ahead of his “Astroworld” festival taking place in his Houston hometown this weekend, Travis Scott has dropped two new songs, “Escape Plan.”
The songs are likely from his forthcoming album “Utopia,” which he and producer Mike Dean have teased on social media over the past few weeks.
Although “Escape Plan” drew most of the initial attention upon the midnight drop — within the first 13 minutes, the audio of “Escape Plan” had 18,000 listens on YouTube and “Mafia” had only 2,000 — some fans who quickly came to discover there were two new tracks settled on the moody “Mafia” as being even better than the one reaching people first out of the gate.
The producers credited for “Escape Plan” on streaming services are Nik D and Oz, while Boi 1da and Jahaan Sweet produced “Mafia.” Dean is credited as mixing and mastering engineer on both tracks. Jermaine Cole, aka J. Cole, earns a vocal credit on “Mafia.”
It’s been a long three years since the release of Scott’s most recent album, “Astroworld” (from which the festival was named), but he’s hardly been out of the public eye, performing at the Rolling Loud festivals in Miami and New York — where he debuted a new song called “Escape Plan”; dropping one-off songs like “Highest in the Room” and collaborations Young Thug, Kid Cudi, Ed Sheeran, Rosalia, and others; recording the high-concept “The Plan” for the film “Tenet” — which he spoke about with PvNew earlier this year — not to mention baby number two with Kylie Jenner, who was announced in September.
SOME NEW MUSIC AT MIDNIGHT.
AHAHAHHSBDBDDKRKRHEB pic.twitter/bHWctMvLwr— TRAVIS SCOTT (@trvisXX) November 4, 2021
Speaking with PvNew earlier this year, Scott said the new album is “feeling like a progression from ‘Astroworld,’ I’m starting to shape a new soundscape,” he said. “It’s pretty interesting — I’m always looking to see how people are taking it in and pushing it to another level, just growing from where I left off and taking it to an untouchable height.”
Asked whether he considers albums important conceptually in a music world that seems to be moving away from them, he said, “I’m totally working on an album — I definitely care more about making albums than just dropping songs. I like dropping songs as [often] as I wanna drop them, but I love albums — I grew up on them.”
As for artist he’d like to work with, he reeled off a characteristically unexpected list.
“I would love to work with Bjork; I’ve never worked with Beyonce and I would love to see where we could push the sound. Chris Martin is fire; [British drum n’ bass veteran] Goldie is fire; [oddball British singer-songwriter] King Krule — I’m a big King Krule fan I’m so glad he dropped music again.”
