Travis Scott recently reunited with his mentor Kanye West on “Wash Us in the Blood,” West’s latest foray into Christianity-infused hip-hop. While this is more of a new lane for Travis, the Houston MC is perfectly comfortable mixing rap and religion. In a recent interview with The Face Magazine, he reflected on dabbling in Christian rap alongside West.
“My grandmother and my grandfather always kept me in that. My mom and dad always. For sure, a thousand percent. I still find faith in everything,” he says. “I mean, I’ve made records where I don’t curse. Not every song has to have a curse word in it for it to be good. So it’s not about that. And I think, even in the beginning, [Kanye’s music] was church-inspired, too.”
He added that religious rap can still be “real talk… and sometimes a lot of real talk ain’t soft.”
On “Wash Us in the Blood,” Scott raps about the Sixth Commandment of “Thou shalt not kill,” comparing it to the United States' death penalty policy:
Execution, thirty states (That’s right)
Thirty states still execute (Ah)
Thou shall not kill, I shall not spill, Nextels at the rendezvous
He’s previously mixed some religious themes into his music, like on the ASTRWORLD cut, “STOP TRYING TO BE GOD,” when he raps:
Stop tryna be God Almighty
F-ck the money, never leave your people behind, yeah
It’s never love, no matter what you try
Still can see it comin' down your eyes
‘Cause they did not create commandments (Ooh-ooh)
When you hustle, always make it fancy (Ooh-ooh)
Elements of religion are also in some of his earlier work. He opens his much-loved Days Before Rodeo mixtape with “The Prayer,” which finds him name-checking Jesus and rapping over a church organ.
While West has expressed a desire to only release Christian music going forward, it looks like Travis will continue selectively weaving religious themes into his work.
Read his full The Face interview here and catch up on all the lyrics to ASTROWORLD on Genius now.
