Travis Scott performed to a live crowd for the first time in six months, following the Astroworld tragedy in November.
Taking the stage in Miami in the early hours of Sunday, the rapper performed to a small audience for the first time since the Astroworld Festival in his hometown of Houston, where 10 concertgoers — between 9 and 27 years old — were killed in a deadly crowd surge while he performed onstage on Nov. 5.
Scott’s public comeback was held at E11even megaclub, in celebration of the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix weekend.
According to attendees, he was onstage for roughly 45 minutes, performing songs including “Sicko Mode” and “Butterfly Effect” from his 2018 Astroworld album, which inspired the name of the festival he produced.
Scott — who has been widely criticized for his handling of the Astroworld tragedy — was in high spirits for the recent performance, Page Six reported.
He apparently held a bottle of Don Julio 1942 and threw a wad of cash into the crowd, while telling attendees: “Everybody owes me a shot. We need every stripper to report to the fucking stage right now. We need every bottle reported to this motherfucking floor.”
After an announcement that Scott had been removed from the Coachella 2022 lineup late last year, it was reported that the rapper made a number of private or otherwise unofficial performances. However, this is the first time he has taken the stage at a public venue since Astroworld.
The 31-year-old — who shares two children with Kylie Jenner — has kept a low profile since the devastating events in Houston. He maintains that he was unaware that fans were being crushed to death in the crowd beneath him, following intense criticism for continuing to play on for a reported 37 minutes after emergency responders declared a mass casualty incident at the show.
And despite having made his official return to the stage on Sunday, the legal fallout of the festival continues to unravel.
In February, nearly 400 individual lawsuits filed by victims in the immediate aftermath of the festival were compiled into one giant case, seeking billions of dollars in damages for those impacted.
The sprawling lawsuit is set to represent close to 2,800 victims claiming that Scott and the festival organizers at Live Nation were legally negligent in the planning and execution of Astroworld.
When asked if he thought people were “forcing responsibility” onto him for the tragedy during his first and only interview since the event, Scott agreed and implied that the media was unfairly pinning the blame on him.
“Well, yeah, you know, I'm the face of the festival, I’m a artist,” he said in December. “So yeah, the media is … They wanna put it on me.”
In April, fans spotted billboards in California teasing the release of Scott’s long-delayed album, Utopia, which he had already started promoting before Astroworld took place.
Supposed Utopia billboards seen on the I-10 highway headed towards Coachella read “Looking for UTOPIA?” and “WRONG WAY!”, which some interpreted as a subtle nod to his scrapped performance at the festival last month.
Travis Scott UTOPIA Billboards spotted in California!
And while the signs didn’t indicate a release date for the project, Scott’s first public performance in tandem with the gradual rollout of a new album suggests that his phased return to the public arena is in full swing.
