Meaning of “Skitzo” by Travis Scott (ft. Young Thug)
Kanye West has been dealing with a lot of negativity of late, including seemingly being mocked by Taylor Swift less than a week before the release of “Skitzo” on 28 July 2023. But this song has made a couple of headlines due to Travis showing his support to Yeezus, a fellow rapper who has been cancelled, according to some sources. He does so by alluding to his loyalty to West, even going as far as to endorse “Ye over Biden” for President of the United States.
It’s unlikely that Kanye will make another bid for President in the near future, if ever. But to note, he and Scott do have a collaboration history, seemingly dating back to Travis’s 2015 track “Piss on Your Grave”.
Besides that, they’ve both also been intimately involved with the Kardashian clan, and Scott is on record, many years back, as stating that Kanye ‘is like his stepdad’. So the emotion between them must be real, as Yeezus has worked with innumerable rappers throughout the years, but Scott feels like the only one thus far to come to his defense, if you will, in a notable way like this.
“Skitzo”
That said, there is a lot going on in this song beyond the Kanye reference. For example, “Skitzo” features Young Thug who, as of this release, has been incarcerated for over a year. But to note, Travis began recording “Utopia”, the album this track is featured on, in 2019.
And it was hinted in early 2021 that Young Thug participated on the project, meaning that it would have been around that time that he contributed these vocals.
“Skitzo” is longer than your average song. The lyrics reflect that reality, with Scott holding down a full three verses, besides Young Thug contributing one of his own. And in the first verse, Travis does a good job of sticking to the subject matter at hand, depicting himself as a “skitzo” or schizo, which Cambridge Dictionary colloquially defines as “a person who acts in a strange and sometimes violent or threatening way”.
And we see during part of the first verse, the rapper does come off as someone who is extremely cautious, in an aggressive kinda way, of being robbed or ambushed. But the latter part of the verse, when he gets to repeating “told you I’ma be right back so long as”, without actually finishing that statement isn’t that easy to understand. Nor the rest of the song does not stick to the “skitzo” motif.
For example, the verse that follows, as held down by Young Thug, more or less revolves around your standard money- and shawty-based braggadocio. And the other passages can also be considered along the lines of standard mainstream-rap fare, i.e. the vocalist biggin’ himself up without sticking to a particular topic per se.
“Believe me, I move at night when they really can’t see me
I ran it back last time but it ain’t last time
I got so much around the house, I had to hide mine (Yeah, oh)”
NOTE: “Skitzo” is usually just a funky way to spell “schizo,” which is just a quicker way of saying “schizophrenia.”
The Team behind “Skitzo”
The five musicians who are credited as both writers and producers of this song are:
- Boi-1da
- Jahaan Sweet
- Coleman
- Nik Dean
- Slim Pharaoh
The other authors of “Skitzo” are:
- Travis Scott
- WondaGurl
- Dougie F
- India.Arie
Meanwhile, the labels that backed this outing are Epic Records, whom Travis has been down with since 2012, as well as Cactus Jack Records, which he founded in 2017.
