Meaning of “Meltdown” by Travis Scott (ft. Drake)

Subjecting yourself to a song such as this one (“Meltdown”) more or less entails dedicating four minutes of your life to listening to the vocalists brag about their success and formidability. Drake is an expert at doing so in what may be termed roundabout ways, such giving during this outing giving a shoutout to his hometown, Toronto (aka “the 6”) and in the process alluding to it being an underrated cultural hub. 

He also uses the opportunity of “Meltdown” to point to the drama he got into with Vogue, i.e. the most-popular fashion magazine in the world, while concurrently threatening Pusha T and Pharrell.

The Beef

Pusha T has been Drake’s archrival since what feels like time immemorial, but the drama really reached a high point in 2018 with the release of Pusha’s diss track “The Story of Adidon“. As for Pharrell, he’s known for being friendly with both parties, even encouraging them to squash their beef a few years back. 

Also circa late 2022, Drizzy purchased quite of few very-pricey personal items which Pharrell auctioned off, without their appearing to be any malicious intent behind said purchases. But this might not be the case. And why do we say that? Some analysts have suggested that Drake might be dissing Pharrell in this song via theoretically claiming to have ‘melted down’ the jewelry he purchased from Pharrell (thus explaining the title of the track).

Beyond that, Pharrell is closer to Pusha T than he is to Drake. In fact just a month prior to this release, Pusha attended Paris Fashion Week and appeared on stage alongside Pharrell to celebrate the latter landing a high-profile job at Louis Vuitton. 

So that would likely be what Drizzy means when he states “you lucky that Vogue was suing, ‘cause I would have been up with the Wassas in Paris”. In other words, if not for the fact he was facing a (fashion-industry related) lawsuit (which, to note, had already settled earlier in 2023), Drake would have run up on Pharrell and Pusha in Paris with the backing of Wass Gang, i.e. a criminal organization from his hometown of Toronto he’s rumored to be associated with.

Travis steps in

Travis takes somewhat of a similar general approach such as, in the second of his two verses, giving a shoutout to “these Texas boys”, with Scott himself being from Houston. He also notably references the likes of gun violence and shows support for one of his incarcerated peers, Young Thug, whom it increasingly appears as if he may end up doing a major bid.  

Beyond that, Travis dropped a couple of additional notable lines, such as in his first verse recognizing that many people consider him to be “satanic” but counters by noting that he has “a reverend” in his life, thus implying that he’s Christian or what have you.  

Also, before closing out that segment, it has been put together that he throws an indirect jab at Timothee Chalamet, i.e. the Hollywood A-lister who’s currently known to be dating Scott’s ex, Kylie Jenner. And it may be that he disses her also along the way, in terms of the addressee whom he’s directing the “find another flame as hot as me, b*tch” line to.

“Yeah, is you f–king crazy? (Nah)
Is you f–king crazy? (What?)
Is you f–king crazy? (Nah, nah)”

Release Date of “Meltdown”

Scott and his management officially released “Meltdown” on July 28 of 2023. It is track No. 7 on the rapper’s 2023 project “Utopia”.

Writers and Producers of “Meltdown”

“Meltdown” was authored by Scott along with its featured artist, Drake. The song features writing credits from the following other artists:

• Vinylz
• Tay Keith
• Boi-1da
• BNYX®
• Coleman

In addition to authoring this track, all the writers on the above list also contributed to the production of this song. They were assisted by a producer known as Skeleton Cartier.