After a two year wait, Travis Scott finally released ASTROWORLD on August 3rd. The album’s delays had become a joke in themselves. However, upon release, the album brought Travis acclaim he had never before received. Up until this release, Scott’s album discography consisted of Rodeo and Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, albums that earned more profit than critical praise. He also had become a staple feature artists, adding his vocals to hit after hit. So how did Scott reach his own peak of critical and commercial success on ASTROWORLD? It was just a matter of him taking his time.

It would be easy to describe Scott’s career arc as linear, but that would be a bit unfair. When he released his first mixtape, Owl Pharaoh, he was already signed to Kanye West’s GOOD Music. Because of his long time connection to West, many listeners think of him as a GOOD Music artists and attribute his rise in popularity to that claim. This claim is true, partially. Scott is actually only signed to GOOD as a producer, under the “Very GOOD beats” imprint. This gets a bit confusing as Scott rarely ever has solo production credits on others’ songs, and only a few on his own. This means that his albums are not released through GOOD Music and never have been, they have always been released by Grand Hustle records.

Grand Hustle is a label led by Atlanta legend T.I. Scott and T.I.’s relationship is not as publicized as his and Kanye’s (it’s a Kardashian-less bromance), but T.I. did narrate Rodeo and had executive producer credits on Scott’s first two albums. Before I move on and, and for the sake of completion, I’ll mention that Scott also has a major-label deal with EPIC records and now has his own label imprint, Cactus Jack records.

Back to Scott’s rise. In 2015, after gaining popularity through two mixtape releases, Scott released his debut album, Rodeo. The album hit number three on the Billboard album chart and number one on the rap chart. Singles 3500 and Antidote hit the Billboard Hot 100 with the latter reaching number 16, his highest charting single at the time. While the album wasn’t beloved by critics, it marked the start of Scott’s mainstream success and helped create the cult fan base he has today.

Scott’s path became a bit more jagged after Rodeo. After his first big taste of success, the stakes were even higher for his sophomore effort. In May 2016, he announced ASTROWORLD. That may seem confusing, as there were two albums before this month’s release. When Birds in the Trap was released in September, it seemed to be simply an appetizer for his next project. Fans didn’t see it that way though, as the album was his first number one. The album came with singles Pick Up the Phone and Goosebumps. Even with features from Young Thug, Quavo and Kendrick Lamar, none of these songs reached the same success as Rodeo’s Antidote (Goosebumps was a weird case because of its longevity, the song ended up being 4x platinum, his best certification edging out Antidote’s 3x platinum). He followed up this album with his biggest tour yet, the Bird’s Eye View tour (featuring a viral performance of him performing Goosebumps 14 times in a row) and shortly after opened for Kendrick Lamar on the DAMN. tour. Again, it seemed that Travis’ popularity had peaked.

2017 seemed to be the year for ASTROWORLD, the entrée. It seemed this way mostly because Scott said so in concert. Instead, he decided to get another drink. After hype that lasted most of the year, Scott released a collaborative album with Migos’ Quavo, Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho. The album hit number three on the album charts and had six of its 13 songs in the Hot 100. While almost charting half the album is impressive, none of the songs cracked the top 60. The album also marked his third effort in a row that was widely dismissed by critics.

At this time, Scott also was making a name for himself through features. “Feat. Travis Scott” was a common phrase on the hot 100. He featured on Drake’s Portland in 2017, which brought his highest placement on the Hot 100 to that point and his first top 10 appearance. He also had notable features on Miguel’s Sky Walker (#29) and SZA’s Love Galore (2x platinum). He also had a child with Kylie Jenner at this time, a fact that helped increase his relevancy.

While his popularity was at an all-time high, his artistry seemed to stagnate. As I mentioned before, his albums were widely dismissed by critics, and he didn’t seem to be moving away from the “Travis Scott sound”. The sound is mostly made up of heavy auto tune and beats driven by percussion. Financially, there was no need for him to shift. Scott was more successful than ever, and his “sound” made him increasingly desirable to be included on others’ tracks (I use the term “sound” instead of production as it is unclear how much he adds to the production of his and others’ tracks).

Finally, after a two year wait, Scott released ASTROWORLD. Based on his recent output (and the disappointing Butterfly Effect), the album seemed to have no way to live up its expectations. It surpassed them. ASTROWORLD was Scott’s first critical success, earning acclaim from The Independent, Exclaim, and HipHopDX among others. He brought in almost the entire hip hop industry to help work on the project, and received his best Billboard numbers yet. He held the #1 album in four different countries upon release and charqted his first top 10 singles as a lead artist (SICKO MODE and STARGAZING). Not only that, all 17 songs on the album reached the Billboard Hot 100 with 10 in the top 40.

It’s rare that artists can hit this dual peak, so how did Scott do it? He took his time. Earlier in the article, I wrote in depth about Scott’s career timeline, this was partially for context, but it was also to highlight the projects between the announcement of ASTROWORLD and its release. From research on the recording process, it seems like Scott had been working on ASTROWORLD since before Birds’ release. While he was still taking his time on creating his magnum opus, he kept releasing music to keep fans happy. His fame continued to grow during this time, and he developed more resources and connections to contribute to his masterpiece. Scott essentially released multiple B-Side albums before the album actually released. Sure, he had to sacrifice some tracks that probably would’ve boosted ASTROWORLD even more (Goosebumps, Pick Up the Phone) but it all worked out in the end.

This is an interesting middling strategy compared to what other artists are doing. Take Drake for example, his popularity and relevance are each incredibly important to his music. He keeps that relevancy by putting out an album every year. This is an exhausting (especially when they’re over 20 songs) and nearly impossible feat to achieve, luckily Drake has the very best people in the music industry to help him do that. If one was to pick out five or so songs from each of Drake’s last three albums, and combine them into one album, it would be his best work. Can Drake afford to wait and accrue songs like that? Based on his past three years, he and his team must think not.

Let’s take the opposite, Frank Ocean. Ocean took those three years and then some to release Blonde. He was berated for it until then album was eventually released. Hell, he’s starting to get flac for it again two years later. Blonde is an artistically impressive work that needed time and patience to create. He released a B-sides album alongside Blonde with Endless. Post-Blonde he decided to release those B-Sides as individual singles, which seemed to appease fans more than waiting for a full album. This model has been followed by his Odd Future colleague, Tyler, the Creator, who took his time to release Flower Boy, his best work. Since the release he has been dropping spare songs and verses to comfort fans.

Waiting is a dangerous thing to do in today’s society of music consumption. With instant access to any music necessary, our attention spans have grown shorter. If an artist waits to release music, it better be good, or they could be written off entirely. The creative process is not rewarded by this consumer model. I referred to subpar songs above as “B-Sides”, this is not an incredibly accurate term. That being said, artists are going to make bad songs, it’s a fact of recording. Artists record hundreds of songs a year, and its nearly impossible for them all to be good (or finished). However, if artists only released good songs, we’d have a scarcity of music. It’s a fine line, and that’s what makes it interesting to see Scott find a new way to get those songs out there, while still buying time for himself to release his best work.