While Rolling Stone dubbed it “the finest concert on the planet” and likened Scott’s “leap unfettered” to Michael Jackson’s “moonwalking,” the New York Times dubbed him “one of the most intriguing musicians of the time” and a “maestro who leads the madness.”
As part of his large-scale diversification, Mr. Scott published his smash album to coincide with the start of a festival of the same name, continuing the industry practise of weekend-long performances in marquees that have been branded and organised by famous artists. In spite of the fact that Astroworld was discontinued in 2020 owing to the Covid-19 epidemic, Mr. Scott performed in the online game Fortnite, which attracted 28 million spectators.
Look Mom I Can Fly, a Netflix documentary, chronicles the events leading up to the release of the album “Astroworld” and the inaugural edition of the festival. However, while Mr. Scott’s proclivity for stirring up excitement was emphasised throughout the documentary – which flashed back and forth between the empty stadiums of his early career and the excitement of Lollapalooza, Arkansas.
Scott is filmed reprimanding security and hurrying his audience, but he is also shown halting onstage many times while seemingly unconscious individuals are pulled from the crowd and sent to the hospital for treatment. “I’m not feeling well,” he said after being released from an Arkansas jail.
In preparation for another performance, a member of the rapper’s entourage is seen backstage to brief the venue’s security officers.
As the guy, whose face is blurred in the clip, explains to them, “our youngsters push the front and spread all over that and cover the whole front floor, so the pressure is extremely huge on the barrier.” The number of people crowd surfing will be high, but you’ll also witness a lot of children trying to get out and to safety because they can’t breathe since the area is so confined.
“You won’t know how terrible things can go with our mob until we get involved,” he says further.
Mr. Scott said in a video message posted on Instagram that, despite the fact that he saw an ambulance among the throng, he was unaware of the magnitude of the situation. According to him, he normally pauses his shows to ensure that wounded fans can go to a secure location, and he said, “I could never comprehend the seriousness of the situation.”
The Scott family said on Monday that Mr. Scott would pay all burial expenses for those who died at Astroworld, and that he would also provide refunds to all guests who had purchased tickets to the event. Moreover, the rapper has postponed his scheduled headline performance at the Day N Vegas event on Saturday, according to the report.
After years of encouraging — and even participating in — extreme behaviour by his fans, Mr. Scott’s biggest selling point and foundational philosophy as an artist has quickly become a flash point about his culpability. While crowd-control disasters have occurred at rock concerts, religious celebrations, and soccer matches, the Houston incident has quickly turned Mr. Scott’s biggest selling point and foundational philosophy as a musician into a flash point about his culpability.
Those incidents, however, only served to further cement the legend of the rapper’s live performances, with footage of stretchers, wheelchairs, and the daredevil stunts that may have necessitated their use — such as leaping from lighting structures — being used to illustrate Mr. Scott’s roving carnival of a professional life.
