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Travis Scott · S1 E3
Grandma's Neighborhood
Ages one to six at Grandma Sealie's house in South Park, one of Houston's roughest neighborhoods
South Park, Houston, 1995. Three-year-old Jacques is sitting on his grandmother Sealie's living room floor when a car rolls past at walking speed, bass so heavy it rattles the picture frames off the wall.
Travis Scott ft. Young Thug & M.I.A., FRANCHISE (2020). The video shows Travis on a sprawling Texas compound, miles from where he started. But every empire has a foundation. For Travis, it was poured in a grandmother's house on Houston's South Side.
South Park
South Park sits in southeast Houston, a world away from Missouri City's trimmed hedges. In the mid-1990s, it's one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. Travis's grandmother Sealie lives here, and from ages one to six, so does Jacques. His father will later buy him a drum set at age three, but the first instrument Travis hears is Houston bass through a living room wall.
Sources
Travis Scott, Wikipedia; familyrootapp.com Travis Scott Family Tree
South Park, Houston
The southeast Houston neighborhood where Travis lived with his grandmother Sealie from ages one to six. One of the roughest areas in the city, and the place where Houston's street culture first seeped into a young kid's ears.
FRANCHISE, Travis Scott ft. Young Thug & M.I.A. (2020)
Built on samples of Dem Franchize Boyz' "White Tee" and M-Beat's jungle classic "Incredible," this track pulls from opposite ends of the musical spectrum. Chase B and the production team layer distorted guitar over stuttering hi-hats while M.I.A. delivers her hook like a war cry. The beat never quite settles, it shifts underneath you. That restlessness is pure South Park energy: you learn to stay alert when the ground keeps moving.
Sources
FRANCHISE credits, Epic Records / Cactus Jack, 2020
Sample credits confirmed via WhoSampled.com
“I stayed with my grandma for a minute when I was younger. I seen a lot, bro. I seen the worst. That changes you when you're that little.”
— Travis Scott, interview with Charlamagne Tha God, The Breakfast Club, 2016
TAP TO REVEAL: Which Houston legend died on the same South Side streets where Travis once lived?
DJ Screw pioneered which Houston music technique?
R.I.P. SCREW, Travis Scott
From ASTROWORLD (2018). Travis's tribute to the man whose music defined the neighborhood he grew up in. Swae Lee's pitched-down hook floats over a beat that deliberately borrows from the chopped-and-screwed tradition. The whole track feels like driving through the South Side at night with the windows down, which is exactly the point.
R.I.P. SCREW, Travis Scott (2018)
Read the lyrics while you listen. The song channels Screw's legacy through Travis's lens: sipping lean, riding slow, letting the bass carry the weight. It's not just a tribute. It's a timestamp of what Houston's South Side sounded like through the walls of a grandmother's house.
South Park gave Jacques his ear for Houston's sound. But back in Missouri City, a bedroom, a cracked copy of FL Studio, and an obsession with Kanye West are about to collide. Next: the teenager who taught himself to make beats before he could drive.
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