Travis Scott‘s 10-year-old mixtape, Days Earlier than Rodeo, offered an astonishing 361,000 copies. This is why a decade-old mixtape is presently one of many best-selling releases of 2024.
Travis Scott’s cult-like fanbase is well-known all through hip-hop, with their timeless love and assist at occasions touchdown them on the heart of controversy. Scott’s relationship along with his followers got here underneath intense scrutiny following the deaths of 10 folks at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Pageant in 2021. The deaths occurred following a crowd surge to see Scott carry out, and conspiracy theories ran a muck on the web, with some going as far as to say the deaths have been a part of a satanic ritual honoring Scott.
That is clearly all fabricated, however the continued dialogue surrounding Scott’s cabal of followers positively has some fact to it contemplating how passionately they present up for his or her chief. This deep bond has been on show quite a few occasions all through Scott’s profession. Whether or not it’s associated to the music or spending $400 for a McDonald’s hen nugget pillow tied to the rapper’s partnership with the quick meals franchise in 2020, La Flame followers all the time pull up and present love.
However that dedication all started with Days Earlier than Rodeo. Whereas it isn’t Scott’s first mixtape, DBR was the primary undertaking to totally lock within the fanbase for the lengthy haul. Scott’s buzz was already rising round 2013. Aided partially by severe songwriting and manufacturing credit with Ye, Jay-Z and different A-list powerhouses, La Flame had additionally begun to develop a fame for uninhibited stay exhibits. By the point Scott’s debut undertaking, Owl Pharoah, arrived later that yr, his first gaggle of supporters have been totally indoctrinated because of some of Scott’s earliest bangers like “Higher Echelon,” “Uptown” “Quintana” and “Bandz.” When Days Earlier than Rodeo dropped in August of 2014, the thrill round Scott’s brimming artistic power was at a boiling level.
DBR was met with instant important acclaim, partially for Scott’s distinctive fusion of southern hip-hop staples with darkish, gothic power. The ensuing product linked instantly with downtrodden misunderstood children in want of some reduction. Anthemic songs like “Skyfall,” “Zombies” and “Medication You Ought to Attempt It” compelled rebellious teenagers to rage for one thing totally different.
“We do not need their bulls**t no extra,” Travis urges children to sing on “Zombies.”
However once more, that was all 10 years in the past. Contemplating the album has remained a fast YouTube search away since then, it is nonetheless a shock that transitioning DBR to streaming companies revived such an explosive love for the album. Nostalgia for the tape itself, in fact, performed a giant position, however Scott additionally simply is aware of the way to market the hell out of a undertaking.
When Scott introduced that the tape would arrive on DSPs again in August, he additionally revealed the discharge would include new bonus B-sides recorded in the course of the album’s classes. He then dropped the undertaking on SoundCloud previous to its DSP arrival, and following the album’s launch on Aug. 18, La Flame fanned the flames much more by dropping a music video to “Medication You Ought to Attempt It.” Many Scott diehards take into account “Medication You Ought to Attempt It” to be probably the greatest songs in his complete catalog.
If that did not pump the followers up any tougher, La Flame additionally launched six deluxe editions of the album on the market on his web site, which had unique bonus content material from the DBR days, to not point out unique vinyl releases. Scott additionally teased a Days Earlier than Rodeo tour throughout an intimate present in Atlanta on Aug. 25, although there aren’t any particulars on that as of writing.
There was additionally a aggressive facet to the numbers, fueled by Sabrina Carpenter and her followers. The pop singer clearly emerged triumphant (simply by a hair) with the No. 1 Billboard 200 slot, however beforehand Carpenter appeared to criticize Scott for unleashing so many album variations directly.
“This one’s for Nicki,” the singer wrote on X, previously often called Twitter.
The tweet referred to when Nicki Minaj’s Queen went up towards Scott’s Astroworld for the No. 1 spot in 2018. Nicki was bested by Astroworld thanks partially to the same launch technique, and he or she went on her now-infamous rant concerning the “Auto-Tune man,” accusing him of gaming the system. Nicki confirmed love for Sabrina’s tweet.
So what does one get when all of those features come collectively? A severely impactful first-week debut. Days Earlier than Rodeo is now the fourth-largest debut this yr and the most important week for any rap album. The album itself offered 331,000 copies, marking 2024’s second largest gross sales week, surpassed solely by Taylor Swift’s album The Tortured Poets Division.
Most significantly, what the numbers and ravenous fandom reveal is that Days Earlier than Rodeo is a timeless document, that even amid all the novelty of 2024, it could possibly nonetheless pack a severe punch.
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