Travis Scott Should Read the Riot Grrrl Manifesto
Collage by Alex Ramos
For the past couple of years, more and more mosh pits are opening up in the crowds of shows that aren’t playing hardcore music. The audience gets hopped up on loud bass, the back and forth of energy between fans and performers, and the sheer rush of hearing your favourite music out loud. The bone I have to pick is not that the hardcore mosh pit gate should be kept closed to other genres of music, but rather that the aesthetics of the mosh pits are being co-opted without the structural or cultural understandings that keeps them relatively safe spaces.
Travis Scott is among a faction of young rappers who enjoy putting on high-energy performances. No more standing around in the crowd, swaying back and forth if you go to his shows. Specifically, he wants his fans (many younger) to get crazy, to rage in the crowd. His message is clear and consistent throughout his branding, interviews, and the way he behaves during his shows. To be a true Cactus Jack fan, you either rage or go home. His fan base is obviously wide, as he is extremely popular, but it’s also overwhelmingly young and male. This is no mistake — after all, he signed brand deals with McDonalds and Fortnite. There is undoubtedly an intoxicating undercurrent of teenage angst at his shows. Thousands of obsessive fans with bottled up emotions and energy are waiting to burst as soon as the lights go down and Scott shows up.
Another artist that has created this culture at their shows is Playboi Carti, and there is obvious overlap between their fan bases. Recently, Rico Nasty, a rapper known for her aggressive sound, set out on tour with Carti. Her performances are full of energy and she is no stranger to a wild crowd, but despite the seemingly good musical pairing between Nasty and Carti, the audience did not react well. On two separate occasions, Carti’s fans heckled Nasty, booing as she attempted to perform and throwing a water bottle at her while on stage. During the latter incident, she became so angry that she jumped down into the crowd, presumably to fight whoever had thrown the bottle, but was stopped by security.
The Riot Grrrl movement of the mid-1990s, which originated in the America Pacific Northwest punk and hardcore scene, was born out of sheer frustration by women who felt alienated and brutalized by the male-dominated shows and culture that the genre had fostered. Women who wanted to enjoy the music and catharsis of the audience’s collective release had to fight back twice as hard just to be there. From men shoving over-zealously to make a woman prove herself in the pit, to having obscenities be shouted at femme musicians, the hardcore scene’s boys club was thriving. Not only was it mentally exhausting to have to experience misogyny in a space where you go to have fun, but being made to earn your stripes by hypercritical judges was a dangerous endeavor. The Riot Grrrl movement attempted to regain control, at least at their own shows, by shouting out “Girls to the front!” This was both a physical call to action, as well as a symbolic one. They had enough of having to fight twice as hard to be respected. The movement merged punk music, feminism and politics that resulted in a whirlwind of community organizing, zine making and more space being carved out for minorities in the scene.
Rico Nasty is an artist that exists in the legacy of the Riot Grrrl movement. As a woman rapper, she already has to prove herself against a sea of mediocre dudes, but Nasty also happens to be bringing to the mainstream a heavily punk-inspired style of rapping. Her music appeals greatly to women who, like her, feel marginalized by society for their gender, ethnicity or musical preferences. Maybe they also just want to feel the release of flinging yourself at another stranger in the crowd, in a moment of consensual aggression and contact.
The culture of toxic masculinity that artists like Travis Scott and Playboi Carti cultivate is not only troubling socially, but is legitimately dangerous. Fans idolize their favourite performers and many would do anything they are asked to do. There was an instance of someone in the audience taking Scott’s shoe and Scott’s reaction was to tell the other fans to gang up on that individual. Taking advantage of one’s fans' dedication, their adrenaline-fueled quickness to act and a chance to prove themselves to the artist through raging, created a very unsafe environment for concert goers. In Rico Nasty’s case, it became dangerous for the performer. Though Carti wasn’t onstage telling his fans to behave that was towards her, his silence as it happened and on social media after — even as Nasty broke down on Twitter about how much his fans’ poor treatment of her was affecting her mentally — spoke volumes about the type of culture that he perpetuates.
It’s not that borrowing from the hardcore scenes to create intense environments at rap shows is inherently bad. It’s that these artists are stuck too far in the past when bringing these elements into their contemporary shows. The lasting effects of the Riot Grrrl movement in the hardcore and punk scene exist without having to say “girls to the front” at every show. When I spoke with my friends about what they’ve experienced going to punk shows, both women and men overwhelmingly had positive things to say about their times thrashing in the pit: “There’s something so special about being able to be so physical, especially as a woman, and knowing everyone is on the same page about safety makes it even more fun.”
When someone wasn’t respecting mosh pit etiquette, there were several people from the audience who would make them leave. A twitter user summarized this etiquette pretty well, but basically: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, help thy neighbour when they fall, and don’t throw elbows. These rules ensure that people of all sizes, genders, age and abilities can enjoy the show safely. A friend also spoke about the changing demographics of the pit: “The majority of mosh’s are male dominated, but I have also noticed that over the years that there have been a lot less angry men dominating them.” Through the collective efforts of everyone who attends these hardcore shows, more women feel comfortable entering the mosh pit, as they understand that their safety is being taken care of by the collective.
Interestingly, in a 2015 GQ interview, Scott had mentioned his love of WWF (now World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE). He mentions wanting his concerts to feel like the shows he grew up watching. Pro-wrestlers like Hulk Hogan and the Undertaker would enter a match with personalized music, costumes and a carefully crafted persona. The match would consist of over the top fighting-style performances that often featured props, like chairs. The whole thing is campy; unsurprisingly, the WWE has since named itself a “sports entertainment” organization and not a professional sports organization. Much like Scott’s performances and rage culture, they create a highly theatrical, hypermasculine environment that uses elements of activities where controlled physicality is present, but instead focused only on the outward aesthetics. The performance of rage culture plays on the notions of what happens in a mosh pit, without regard from the artist that those participating are familiar with the ways they can keep each other safe just as WWE uses the aesthetics of wrestling as a jumping off point for entertainment.
While the recent Astroworld Festival tragedy in Houston was undoubtedly the result of many factors — including a venue over-capacity, poor crowd management and barricade formation set-up, and limited access to food and water, among other things — the rage culture that has been cultivated by artists like Travis Scott is negligent of the wellbeing of their overwhelmingly young audiences. The normalization of fans in distress or a crowd in chaos lessens the sense of urgency for artists and organizers when a serious problem arises, just as what happened in Astroworld. ◆