Travis Scott delivered a stark, aggressive performance of hit songs from his album UTOPIA at the 2024 Grammys Sunday night.
Standing on an ominous set, surrounded by speakers and smoke and strobe lights, the rapper performed “My Eyes,” “I Know?” and “FE!N.” Toward the end of the medley, Scott could be seen breaking chairs and other onstage props.
Prior to his performance, Scott spoke in a video about UTOPIA, which was also nominated for best rap album this year.
“If you could have a feeling of utopia for one second, or one moment, or one minute, one hour, things can be calm even though everything else around you is moving at 1,000 miles per minute,” the rapper said. “And the album is just my trip trying to find that.”
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This was Scott’s first Grammys performance since the November 2021 Astroworld festival tragedy that left 10 people crushed to death and hundreds injured at one of his concerts.
Shortly after Scott had performed, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. took the stage to pay tribute to the victims of the Hamas attack on the Supernova music festival in Israel that killed hundreds of revelers on Oct. 7 and triggered a war that has so far lasted nearly four months. “Tonight, we celebrate the world of music,” Mason said, to music by string quartet that included members from Palestinian and Israeli backgrounds. Of Oct. 7, he added, “That day, and all the tragic days that have followed, have been awful for the world to bear as we mourn the loss of all innocent lives.”
During his speech, Mason also mentioned the tragedies at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris in 2015, the Manchester Arena bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in England in 2017, and at the Route 91 Harvest Music festival in Las Vegas, also in 2017.
The statement, coming so soon after Scott’s ferocious performance, struck several social media observers as tone-deaf. One person wrote, “Having travis scott perform and then talk about tragedies in music festivals and concerts but not mention astroworld is a choice…”, while another person added, “As someone who listens to Travis Scott…I can not believe they let him perfom tonight….AND interviewed him about his live performance. What Astroworld???”
Scott was among many artists who performed Sunday night, including SZA, Joni Mitchell, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, U2, Miley Cyrus and Luke Combs.
Trevor Noah hosted the 66th annual Grammy Awards, which aired live from Los Angeles on Feb. 4. Find the complete list of the night’s winners here.
