Travis Scott’s second studio album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, was released on September 2, 2016 through Grand Hustle Records. It was delayed twice, at Mike Dean’s discretion, as he felt that he couldn’t get the mix on many of the tracks quite right.
#birds I'm still mixing this album not letting travis drop until I'm done.
— MIKE DEAN! #MWA (@therealmikedean) August 25, 2016
It premiered on Beats 1 Radio and Apple Music in an exclusive by Travis Scott himself. The album has popular hip-hop artist features like André 3000, Bryson Tiller, Kendrick Lamar, Young Thug, and many more. The head producer on the album was Dean, and he did the production on nearly every track as well as most of the mixing and mastering, but other producers like Cardo and Frank Dukes were involved, to name a few. The genre of this album is somewhere between hip-hop and trap. This album distinguishes Scott’s sound; it’s described as gothic-trap. Gothic-trap is based on a cultural lifestyle such as goth fashion or in other words, being “emo”. As with many other genres that have been discussed in this class, the music is only part of it – the genre is really a lifestyle, too. This subgenre of hip hop is a mix of hardcore rap music and the goth lifestyle; this type of music appeals to people who are “lurking in the darkest corners of society” (RebelsMarket). Scott uses hardcore rap, distinct autotune, and dark lyrics that are complemented with distorted harmonies and melodies to create a unique sound of gothic-trap (ibid).
Scott’s idea behind the title of the album was him expressing being held back from moving pop culture and making his imprint on the music industry. He wanted to change the perception of how listeners define hip-hop and trap, but people weren’t always on board with his vision. The core meaning behind the album’s title (focusing on the In the Trap part) is Scott describing how he feels trapped because he cannot express himself the way he wants as it is too out of the ordinary. Most of these records were recorded from his home in Beverly Hills (Planton). Below is a video of Scott producing a track in his house (MPRO!tv):
MIDI technology allows artists like Travis Scott to be creative in any type of environment they choose to produce music. Without this technology, artists like Scott, who were still emerging at the time of this album’s release, never would have had the ability to have access to a major studio.
When Scott released the three popular singles “wonderful”, “pick up the phone”, and “goosebumps” throughout 2016, it built up the anticipation of the release of his sophomore album. Once the album was released, it debuted number one on the US Billboard 200 and it sold 88,000 album units within a week.