Music news, without the noise.

Travis Scott signals producer Mike Dean is back for his next album

He reposted studio footage with Dean and Anthony Kilhoffer, and wrote that an album is on the way.

Travis Scott Mike Dean

Travis Scott raps into a microphone with one arm thrown up, in a beanie and a black jacket over a climbing harness, gold light behind him.
Travis Scott at TD Garden in Boston in July 2017. Photo: Kenny Sun from Boston, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Travis Scott has pointed at Mike Dean's return on his next album, after a year in which the producer's absence from JACKBOYS 2 was one of the most common complaints about it.

On Friday, August 28 he reposted a clip from an archives account showing him, Dean and the producer Anthony Kilhoffer working on the Owl Pharoah track "Uptown" and reacting to A$AP Ferg's feature. Kilhoffer, a close Kanye West collaborator, discovered Scott and managed him at one point.

Scott added a line of his own to the repost: "You had to be there to understand. Album Otw." He tagged both producers and said he was heading back to the studio.

HotNewHipHop notes the reading is not settled. It could mean Dean and Kilhoffer taking formal creative roles on the project rather than turning up as producers and engineers, or it could be a moment of reminiscing that happens to feed album anticipation.

What it does settle is a rumour. Dean's absence from JACKBOYS 2, plus some social media comments read as pointed, had fed talk of a rift between the two, which never turned out to be the case. Scott recently told Variety that the influences on the new record run to Parliament-Funkadelic, Oasis, Van Halen, Don Toliver, Raphael Saadiq and Daft Punk, which suggests something wider than the last one.

Scott has had a busy stretch in hip-hop beyond his own catalogue, guesting on Young Thug's new Young Stoner Life compilation and going up against Drake, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion in the VMAs' Best Hip-Hop field.

The facts

  • Travis Scott suggested Mike Dean is involved in his next album
  • Dean did not feature on JACKBOYS 2
  • Scott reposted a clip of a session with Dean and Anthony Kilhoffer
  • The clip showed work on the Owl Pharoah track Uptown
  • Scott cited Parliament-Funkadelic, Oasis and Daft Punk as influences

How this checks out

Single source

Reported by a single outlet

Only one outlet has reported it so far, so it stays a single source.

Cited sources 1

Every outlet that reported this, linked to what it published. Equal credits, in alphabetical order.

Music news, without the noise.

The weekly rundown

Genres

No selling your address, and one click gets you out.