The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2023 - Issue 33

bitemusicceleb T he young Jacques Berman Webster II’s journey as a teenager making music to dropping out of college to pursue music in New York and then Los Angeles led him to meet rapper T.I. and lat- er hired as a producer by Kanye West’s record Good Music. Born in Houston, Texas, the rapper known professionally as Travis Scott lived with his grandmother until he was six in South Park, a neighbourhood notorious for crime. He lat- er moved to the middle-class suburb of Missouri City to be with his parents. His stage name is a combination of his favourite uncle and one of his inspirations, American rapper Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi. Webster may have been influ- enced musically by his father and grandfather, who were a soul musician and a jazz composer respectively. As a young- ster, he participated in musical theatre at Elkins High School and attended the University of Texas at San Antonio before leaving in his second year. In 2008, he formed a duo called The Graduates with long- time friend Chris Holloway and released an EP on the social networking website MySpace. The following year, he and an- other schoolmate, OG Chess, formedThe Classmates, which released Buddy Rich in 2009 and Cruis’n USA in 2010. The would-be solo rapper handled the production work on both projects. The two friends remained together until late 2012, when personal conflicts and financial disputes led them to disband. In the same year, Scott signed his first major label deal with Epic Records and a publishing deal with Kanye West’s Good