Scott admits he wasn’t initially aware of the severity of the situation

Travis Scott has opened up to radio personality Charlamagne Tha God in his first interview since the Astroworld Festival tragedy last month. During the hourlong conversation, the rapper shares his perspective of how the events unfolded that left 10 dead, hundreds injured and countless lawsuits filed.

Scott was on stage when the crowd of more than 50k surged towards the stage on November 5th in Houston. Panic ensued which caused people to be trampled and emergency personnel to intervene multiple times. Live Nation reportedly agreed to end the concert early after the Houston Police Department and Fire Department declared a mass casualty event, but the concert continued for another 40 minutes. Scott says he wasn’t aware of the tragedy until afterwards and was told to end the show after Drake, who appeared as a special guest, was finished.

“It wasn’t until like minutes until the press conference until I figured out exactly what happened. Even after the show, you know, you’re just kind of hearing, hearing things, but you know, I didn’t know the exact details until, you know, minutes before the press conference,” he says.

“They just told me right after the guest gets off stage, we’re going to end the show. That’s what we did. Other than that, there was no other communication. [There] wasn’t communication on why. That’s just what came through my ears.”

Scott says while he stopped the show several times to request emergency assistance, it’s hard to tell excitement from danger from the stage.

“You’ve got like a venue filled with like 50,000 people. It’s like a sea. You’ve got lights, you’ve got sound, you’ve got pyro, you got your in-ears, you’ve got your sound, you’ve got your mic, you’ve got the music, you’ve got the band, and just all types of stuff going on,” he says.

“Everything kind of sounds the same, and at the end of the day, you just hear music, and when you do, you just hear monks of things. When you’re in the show you just enter the show, and anytime you can feel anything close to you, you try to like definitely get to that.”

Despite having a reputation for inciting riots on stage in the past, Travis does not fault himself for this incident.

“It’s something I’ve been working on for a while of just creating these experiences and trying to show the experience is happening in a safe environment,” he says. “As artists, we trust professionals to make sure things happen and people leave safely. This night was just like a regular show, felt like to me, as far as like the energy. People didn’t show up there just to be harmful. People just showed up to have a good time and then something unfortunate happened, and we just have to figure out what that was.”

Charlamagne That God inquires if Scott believes promoters Live Nation and Score More are at fault, but Scott doesn’t give a clear answer.

“Fans come to the show to have a good experience, and I have a responsibility to figure to what happened here,” Scott says. “I have a responsibility to figure out the solution, and hopefully this takes a first step into us as artists having more insight of what’s going on, and the professionals to kind of surround and figure out more of intel whether it’s tech, whether it’s more of a response, whether it’s whatever the problem is to figure out that. And in the future moving forward in concert safety, make sure this never happens again.”

“They do their job of setting these things up, so I think when we dial into  what specifically happened here, I feel like even they can kind of help what happened in a sense. At the end of the day, I think collectively everyone needs to find out the bottom line solution, especially in concert safety, these things are done right.”

More than 200 lawsuits representing 1,500 plaintiffs have been filed against Scott, Live Nation and others. The Board of Judges of the Civil Trial Division of the Harris County District Courts has determined to consolidate all the past filed and any future filed Astroworld lawsuits to one judge for further handling.

Scott and Live Nation promised full refunds for attendees with Scott covering all funeral costs and mental assistance for those affected. However, most victims’ families have denied Scott’s offer.