The ins and outs of Travis Scott’s relationships are standard fodder for tabloid headlines. But one relationship in particular—his six-year-long creative flirtation with artist George Condo—has flown largely under the radar. The pair first crossed paths in 2019 when Scott penned the exhibition text for Condo’s contribution to that year’s Venice Biennale: a collection of paintings depicting his “paranoid visions” about the social media age and the “deterioration of American values.” The next year, the artist returned the favor by crafting an abstract portrait for Scott’s single “Franchise.”
If Condo is concerned about the glamorization of the dollar bill and the devolution of our social mores, Scott is his smoking gun. The two men are monoliths in their often intersecting and volatile mediums—yet both are willing, as Condo put it, to “destroy and dismantle everything … in order to create something new.” From their respective perches in Houston and the Hamptons, the pair let CULTURED listen in on the kind of conversation they’d typically have over dinner—a meeting of the minds equal parts intimate and unpredictable.
George Condo: I guess we’re just supposed to talk about the way we think as artists.
Travis Scott: Well, I’m pretty sure you’re the same as me. I just go at it. I’ve got ideas in my head that I want to get out. I’m trying to push things forward, always challenge myself to be better. I’ve always been a fan of things—now, I have fans myself who I consider family. I feel like we’re on this journey together.
Condo: Every day I wake up and feel like I’m starting from a blank canvas all over again. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done over the last 30, 40 years, all the people I’ve met, all the music I’ve listened to. When I get into my studio, the one thing I ask myself is, What have I never done before? I love the idea that music and art are so interrelated—we thrive on one another. You always find the right people to work with, and I’ve always respected that.
Scott: I try to connect with people who inspire me to push it. You’re one of those guys pushing your art form at that highest level … like Jimi Hendrix.
Condo: I remember talking to Jay-Z about that kind of thing when I was working with him and Kanye [West]—just before they did Watch the Throne. I was saying, “Back then in the ’70s and ’60s, people like [John] Coltrane and Hendrix were playing notes. When I got to New York in ’79 or ’80, all of a sudden rappers like Run-DMC were replacing instruments with words.” Those words were becoming solos, and I always dug that. I thought it was a really important evolution. That can’t be repeated—those guys like Hendrix, or Coltrane, or Miles [Davis]. I went with Jean-Michel Basquiat to watch Herbie Hancock do “Rockit” at the Roxy. We were like, “Wow. That’s cool!”
Scott: The sparseness in jazz, folk, or anything in those genres—even the soulfulness of blues, and the storytelling of blues, or the rawness—it’s kind of the base foundation. I won’t say that it’s the base foundation of music, but to me, the ideas that some of those artists were implementing were such game-changers—a full Renaissance of their own. I’m trying to carry that wavelength throughout my music.
I started in producing, making beats. I haven’t stopped making beats for other artists and for myself. It’s been important for me to get back into that and remind people that’s my foundation. I remember working on my first mixtape ever. A lot of people didn’t understand where I was trying to take things, and for me to be able to do that now, at this level, is ill. When I made the “FE!N” beat I was like, “Yo, this is crazy, being able to put forth the same energy since day one.”
Condo: Those beats are so strange. When you hear them without anything on top, you think, That is the weirdest beat I ever heard in my life. Then, when things start coming together, those beats become classic.
Scott: We’ve always approached everything from scratch, not doing loops. Taking music back to the real raw art. Cooking things instead of having them passed down. It’s on that level.
Condo: I love that because, as a painter, I start something and I don’t know where it’s gonna end. I want to challenge myself. I want to be lost in a forest and experience every bit of the voyage of finding my way out the other end. I like to come up with things, crash my own ideas, destroy and dismantle everything I’ve ever done before in order to create something new. You gotta say, “It’s gonna be a new thing, and it’s still gonna be me.”
I remember we were in Electric Lady [Studios] and you were like, “I want four chords on a piano.” All of a sudden you had that little microphone next to you, and you’d say something like, “I’m gonna juggle my urges.” Would you ever go back and work again in that studio?
Scott: I’m gonna be back in New York. I’m back in album mode. I’ve been working on music and shit every day on tour. When I’m doing the stadiums, because they’re sold out, I can see the music for what it is. I’m fucking amped.
Condo: When I was at Madison Square Garden during the Utopia tour, shit was fucking crazy. Collaborating on “Franchise” was so cool, because I got to work with other people besides just myself, the paper, and the canvas in the studio. Musicians get to work with people—even if you have to tell them what to do and how you want them to do it. With painting, it’s just your brain and the fucking inanimate object of a canvas. You never perform it. The painting performs itself.
Scott: But depending on where the painting is displayed, it’s a different performance at all times—it’s everlasting.
Hair by Yasmin Adams and Marcus Hatch
Makeup by Merell Hollis
Set Design by Mitchell Frank Fenn
Production by January Productions
Retouching by D-Factory
Photography Assistance by Andrew Goss and Max Brown
Styling Assistance by Alicia Rodriguez Aparicio
