Written by: Andrew Kirkpatrick

Rappers used to give themselves goofy nicknames. Ghostface Killah called himself Tony Starks. Busta Rhymes is sometimes known as Bussa Buss. Eminem is known equally as Slim Shady. The Notorious B.I.G. was also referred to as the much less intimidating Biggie Smalls. But ever since Jay Z wanted to become H to the izz-O, V to the izz-A, rapper nicknames have gotten out of hand.

Curren$y calls himself Spitta when he doesn’t display an ounce of enthusiasm or technical ability in his raps. Big Sean wants the world to call him B.I.G. when he can barely rap on-beat and the only legendary feat he’s accomplished in the world of hip-hop is his infamous (and amazing) “Oh God!” ad-lib. Ab-Soul has been calling himself a Young Mind Fuck when no one even knows what the hell that means. And Kanye West has reimagined himself as the social revolutionary and cultural figurehead Yeezus, when he’s really just a guy with too much money rapping angrily and terribly about fashion and relentlessly objectifying the mother of his child.

The rap game’s latest rapper/producer phenomenon, Travi$ Scott, calls himself La Flame. Another bold title to be sure, but he – unlike most rappers with self-given and self-aggrandizing nicknames – more or less lives up to it. Even though he’s only been a known quantity for a year or so, he’s already leant his talents to more than a few tracks that are pure fire. He produced “Crown,” the only good track off Jay Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail. The beat he gave Big Sean for his “1st Quarter Freestyle” was good enough to make the wannabe B.I.G. sound like an actual good rapper. And he had a hand in Kanye West’s “New Slaves,” which has one of the most effective earthshaking, hip-hop-as-heavy-metal beats this side of the unstoppable monster of an instrumental Lex Luger crafted for Waka Flocka Flame’s “Hard In Da Paint.”

Travi$ Scott’s breakthrough mixtape Owl Pharaoh was an occasionally frustrating (see the unnecessary and muddled remix of Pusha T’s “Blocka”) and occasionally brilliant piece of work (check the anthemic trap banger “Upper Echelon”). Luckily, his latest release, Days Before Rodeo, is far more consistent by comparison, and the tape’s twelve tracks add up to the best trap rap record of this year so far.

In broad terms, Days Before Rodeo adheres to the same sound that Scott’s fellow G.O.O.D. Music affiliates have been working with for the past couple years. Subterranean basslines of the grimiest order buzz and growl over snappy 808’s with all manner of brooding instrumentation coming out of the woodwork to round out the cacophony. But by having the good sense to avoid the self-serious obnoxiousness of Yeezus and the bids at mainstream accessibility that plagued Pusha T’s My Name is My Name, Travi$ Scott delivers his take on this style with more success than any of his cohorts.

Bar for bar, Scott isn’t the best rapper. His subject matter rarely goes beyond drugs, women, and gangsta posturing, and the Houston MC is rarely able to expound on these topics with the finesse of the best of his contemporaries. But that doesn’t really matter. Bars like “black out n**** / deeper than a frat house n**** / doper than the crack house n****” that would fall flat in just about any other context somehow fit in perfectly with the aesthetic that Scott works with. These lyrics are to be listened to simply for the way the sound, not what they actually mean. And fortunately, Travi$ and his collaborators come through with some great flows and hyped delivery. Scott and Young Thug alternate between Atlanta triplet flows and spaced-out autotune crooning in “Skyfall” to brilliant effect, and Migos lend a hand in cooking up one of the most ridiculous posse cuts in recent memory, the unabashedly stupid “Sloppy Toppy.”

While the rapping and singing throughout the tape are superficially entertaining on their own, it’s the incredibly intricate and progressive beatmaking that backs these bars up that makes Days Before Rodeo a truly remarkable mixtape. When it comes to production, Travi$ Scott wears his influences on his sleeve; the instrumentals here are a potent combination of left-field experimentalism in the vein of Kanye West and epic trunk-rattlers a la Lex Luger (both of whom, not coincidentally serve as co-producers on a few tracks). The mash-up of two of the most popular and influential styles of hip-hop production of the past few years might not seem especially remarkable on the surface, but the truth is that few producers have attempted it, and damn near none have pulled it off as skillfully as Scott.

The opening track, “Days Before Rodeo, The Prayer,” sets the tone just right, as an otherworldly string and chorus arrangement leads into a straightforward take-no-prisoners beat anchored by a fluttering earworm of a bassline. “Quintana Pt. 2,” meanwhile takes a simple dancehall keyboard vamp and continually twists and recontextualizes it to the point where, once T.I. hops on for an uncredited verse, you might double check to make sure you’re still listening to the same track. And on the aforementioned and absurdly titled “Sloppy Toppy,” Scott pushes his simultaneous ear for opulence and forcefulness way over the top, as an otherwise standard trap instrumental has the rug constantly pulled out from under it; a soul sample pops up for a few seconds before disappearing entirely, stabs of vocal distortion come and go seemingly at random, the beat’s volume phases whenever it feels like, and a full string accompaniment appears out of nowhere by the song’s halfway point. The next time someone who claims to only love “real music” derides rap music’s simple, looping instrumentals you should first shoot them a look of disgust, then play them this track and watch their head spin. Even the album’s flat-out weirdest instrumental, the glitchy, saw-synth driven “Zombies,” plays out with complete confidence, as if trap music has always been driven by the sort of hard trance synth leads you might hear blasting in a German club in the ’90s.

Travi$ Scott (or La Flame, if you prefer) recalls A$AP Rocky in how he’s suddenly skyrocketed to hip-hop’s highest echelons from relative obscurity. And just like Harlem’s Pretty Motherfucker, the jury’s still out on whether or not Scott can hold his own as a compelling artist across multiple projects. If he can, and if Days Before Rodeo is any indicator of the quality of his projects, he could very well be the most exciting rapper-producer combo hip-hop has seen in a long while. So while the question of whether or not Travi$ Scott is the real deal can’t be answered definitely for now, a tentative, guarded “yes” seems fitting.