“Yeah, man, I swear these old niggas kill me,” raps Travis Scott in his typical melodic flow on “Champain & Vacay.” The Houston star’s pushback against Clipse’s “So Be It,” where Pusha T’s ripped Scott for his “lack of loyalty” towards past mentors and friends like Kanye West and Drake, seems relatively tame. The irony, though, is that Scott isn’t young anymore, either. At age 34, he’s been a star since 2014’s Days Before Rodeo, and his traits are overly familiar: the watery and slightly distorted harmonies, the insistent luxury metaphors, and the way he punctuates his verses with adlibs like “it’s lit!” and “straight up!” At his best, Scott shapes these tropes into immersive Astroworlds, creations where the sonics are so dazzling that one tends to overlook its plasticine exteriors and lack of nuance and frisson. But a decade’s a long time to spend in virtual reality.
Jackboys 2, a sequel to 2019’s EP-length chart-topper Jackboys, may be intended as a showcase for Scott’s Cactus Jack imprint and acts like Don Tolliver, Sheck Wes, SoFaygo, and Wallie the Sensei. But it ultimately sounds like Scott and his Amazing Friends. He hogs most of the tracks alongside high-wattage guests like Playboi Carti and Future (“Where Was You”), Tyla and Vybz Kartel (the tropical-sounding “PBT”), Youngboy Never Broke Again (“Outside”), and 21 Savage (“Kick Out”). The nearly hour-long project is threaded with quotes from UGK hero Bun B that seem designed to center Jackboys 2 as a Texas-sized blockbuster. “This shit get intergalactic,” promises Don Tolliver on “Champaign & Vacay.”
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To his credit, Scott tries to rap a bit harder than usual, especially on “Kick Out” and “Dumbo,” the latter where he brags, “Chain on ice cream, don’t melt.” There’s some nice production, particularly from producers F1lthy and Glasear on “Where Was You,” which floats with an odd, harpsichord-like melody. But everything sounds paved with the same rolling trap-like thump, a baseline requirement for rage-rap. Songs meander by with nothing but banal sentiments to distinguish them, like Scott claiming, “I’m sittin’ courtside, can hit the ref with a tech/Lambo door suicide, she get blessed if we mesh” on “Contest.”
There are a few good shots, though, like when SahBabii claims, “Rainbow diamonds, this shit on me blingin’/Stepped out of the jeweler, bought a gay parade (wow, wow)” on “Beep Beep.” Kodak Black inserts pathos into “Florida Flow” when he raps, “I don’t wanna live too long, too old, but I don’t wanna die this young/All I know if ‘trol pull us over, this bitch better hide this gun.” And hilariously, GloRilla uses her cameo on “Shyne” to rap, “My only regret is bein’ too young to fuck Matthew McConaughey.” Ultimately, Jackboys 2 unfolds like a mediocre Netflix movie, an amusing late-night diversion that’s hard to remember the next day.
