Travis Scott opened up about the Astroworld Festival tragedy in his first interview since the event claimed the lives of 10 people and injured hundreds more last month. Sitting down with Charlamagne Tha God on Thursday (Dec. 9), the Hosuton rapper said he’s been on an “emotional rollercoaster” since the event.
“It’s so hard because I feel very connected to my fans. I went through something, and the fans went through something, and people’s parents went through something and it really hurts,” he told Charlamagne. “It hurts the community. It hurts the city.”
Later on, Scott said he wasn’t aware of the deaths and injuries that occurred at Houston’s NRG Stadium until moments before “the press conference,” likely referring to Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Houston Police Chief Troy Finner’s press conference the following day on Nov. 6.
“Even after the show, you’re just kind of hearing things,” Scott said. “But I didn’t know the exact details until minutes before the press conference. And even at that moment, you’re kinda like, ‘What?’ You just went through something.”
The 30-year-old also said he didn’t hear festival attendees crying out for help during his set.
“It’s so crazy ’cause I’m that artist, too. Anytime you can hear something like that, you wanna stop the show,” he said. “You wanna make sure the fans get the proper attention they need. And anytime I could see something like that, I did. I stopped a couple times just to make sure everybody was ok.”
“You have a venue filled with 50,000 people, but it’s like a sea,” he continued. “You have lights, you have sound, you got pyros, you got your in-ears, you got sound, you got your mics, got the music, [you] got bands. All types of stuff going on.”
“You can only help what you can see and then whatever you’re told,” he added. “Whenever somebody tells you to stop, you just stop.”
Right now, the “Sicko Mode” rapper says he is most concerned with healing his community and identifying what went wrong at the performance to “make sure it never happens again.”
“I have a responsibility to figure out what happened here,” he said. “I have a responsibility to figure out a solution and hopefully this is a first step [for] us as artists [to have] that insight of what’s going on. And the professionals to kind of surround and figure out more intel—whether it’s tech, whether it’s more of a response, whatever the problem is, to figure out that.”
Toward the end, Charlamagne also asked Scott if he’ll be able to forgive himself for the tragedy if the families of the festival’s victims never forgive him.
“Nah. It’s tough. ‘Cause I want them to really know that my intentions weren’t to harm their family at all… it was for them to have a very good time. And it’s just tragic that it didn’t turn out that way,” he said.
Watch his full interview below.