Travis Scott Talks JAY-Z, Cactus Jack Records, Being a Dad, and More

“Jay-Z has always been a mentor to me.” That’s what Travis Scott had to say in a newly released XXL cover story that he was both the star and author of.

The piece, which touched on topics like being a father and his new collaborative album, JACKBOYS, included words straight from Scott about how Jay gave him advice that he plans to pay forward now that he’s in a position of power.

“I met Jay-Z a long time ago,” Scott wrote. ” (…) I have always kept in touch with him. I remember something he said: ‘We were born rich. Money doesn’t equate to rich in spirit. Money doesn’t equate any of that. We are just trying to obtain a certain level of wealth in our communities.’ That’s what it’s about. That comes with pushing an agenda.

From there he went into detail to specify what exactly his agenda is. As he wrote:

My agenda is to give everyone like me a voice and opportunities. We are about to hit 2020. I came in around 2012. My success wasn’t overnight. Now I feel like people are understanding more of what I have been trying to do since 2012. It’s just more about creativity and design now and being able to help with certain things in this life that people deal with every day.

Sometimes when you got a vision and you are dealing with people who have done things for so long and had so much success, a new vision might kinda leer them—not to say that they won’t trust it all the way, but they might not want to roll the dice on it.

As mentioned at the top, he also talked about being a dad to the daughter (Stormi) that he shares with Kylie Jenner. When it came to that topic, he spoke about how fatherhood has changed his perspective, and also what the biggest pain in the ass is when it comes to dating a fellow famous person. In his words he wrote:

I’ve been spending time with my family and with my daughter, Stormi. Being a dad is better than what I thought it would be. Stormi is one of the best human beings I know. She’s like my best friend. She makes life a little bit easier. She just inspires me and she surprises me every day with how she’s thinking. It’s so crazy. Her mom and I came up with the name Stormi together. I love her mommy and I always will. The hard part about relationships is just trying to be in one without a million outside voices interfering.

He also talked about his new collaboration project (which is a description he’s no fan of). And, specifically, what was the creative drive behind that release. As it turns out, it was just an ideal situation where people who like, and have professional respect for, one another just got together to make music. As Scott wrote:

Jack Boys, is a collective of me, Sheck Wes, Don Toliver and people that are signed to Cactus Jack Records, my label. True members of the Cactus Gang—friends, people that I like and respect, musically. I don’t like the word compilation. It’s just a body of work made with a few of my friends and people I’ve always made music with since day one. It’s just fun and something that’s endearing and cool. It kind of like, wakes up the minds of people that might not know about Don Toliver or people that know about Sheck Wes and makes them want to know more.

There’s lot lots more. So go check the whole story out at XXL.