All the way back in 2014, up and coming rapper dropped his second mixtape, “DAYS BEFORE RODEO” as a transition into his first studio album to come a year later, “RODEO.” For years, for various reasons, the mixtape never got its way onto streaming platforms.

Finally, on Aug. 18 of this year, Travis took to Instagram to alert the world that the classic mixtape was to be re-released on all streaming platforms just five days later, on Aug. 25. I never heard the tape until it was re-released, so at first I had no idea as to what to expect from the decade-old project.

Starting things off, Travis did really well here even with it being his second outing. A few of my favorite tracks are “Mamacita,” “Drugs You Should Try It” (or “DYSTI” for short) and “Backyard.” All because I enjoyed his performance throughout all the songs.

Travis offers one of his better verses on “Mamacita,” while he goes in on the track with Young Thug and Rich Homie Quan. Even the chorus from Travis is iconic in his own realm.

“DYSTI” tones down the album quite a bit while Travis showcases his usual sound that we hear today. On the track, we get a melodic performance from Travis that I am impressed with. The fact that he can go from “hype mode” to this in the matter of two tracks is insane. On top of this, the rapping we get out of him on his verses are great as well, even offering a unique flow that I don’t see him using much of anymore.

Lastly, with “Backyard,” Travis is back to being a hype man and is off his rocker. From the beginning to the end of the track, he’s energetic for every second of it. This kind of performance kept me engaged for the nearly five-minute song. Because of these examples of greatness, it’s easy to say that Travis’s performance was amazing.

Moving onto the features, I for one believe that they were all around pretty good.

With “Mamacita,” you get Travis’s other half, Young Thug, as well as Rich Homie Quan. Both of which pair up with Travis perfectly and build off of his verse seamlessly. I always enjoy a good feature from Young Thug, so I anticipated hearing this song for the first time just because of him.

Next, we have “Don’t Play” with The 1975 and Big Sean. First time seeing the feature list, I found it odd to see The 1975 make an appearance. However, I welcomed it as soon as the track was over as they did really well. Same goes for Big Sean. No true standouts here, but nothing to complain about was present either.

We get another Young Thug feature on “Skyfall.” He offers a bridge leading up to his verse, as well as the second verse of the track. As per usual, I enjoy whatever Young Thug brings to the table on any collaboration he and Travis Scott have. While his verse is short compared to the rest of the song, it allows the track to sound somewhat different, making the track not boring.

Lastly for our features, we have all three Migos and Peewee Longway on “Sloppy Toppy.” The vibe that each of the Migos offer is phenomenal. Each of them delivered on all three of their verses. The song starts immediately with Quavo rapping like he usually does, Takeoff breaks up the song in between Travis’s and Peewee’s verses, and Offset leaves off the song with a verse. Although I truly had no idea who Peewee Longway was, his performance on the track was quite nice. However, I don’t think that his verse as well as all three of the Migos verses were needed.

Overall though, the features were pretty great. None of them made me immediately want to turn off a track, so they have that going for them.

As for the production of the record, it contains most of the early 2010s trap beats that you’d hear in 2014. While I do say this, I mean this in the best way possible. Each beat is overflowing with creativity and is not like today’s instrumentals that all end up sounding the same. With songs like “Mamacita,” “Drugs You Should Try It,” and “Backyard,” each track is booming with their production. Each track identifies the vibe that Travis wants to go with and does it quickly with how they all sound sonically. Instrumentals that match the tone that the artist is trying to capture are obviously the best. Because of this, the production is great.

Finally, how replayable is “DAYS BEFORE RODEO?” Coming in at 47 minutes across 12 tracks, I think the album is relatively average in time. This is already a great start for me as I tend to despise longer albums trying to pad out time and songs for extra cash. It ends up making the album listening experience boring near the end of most records.

Here however, I found it super easy to listen to the entire album from front to back, making it quite replayable when wanting to revisit for whatever reason. The album is broken up into three sections as well. Starting off with hype songs, in the middle are more of the psychedelic tracks that Travis Scott is known for today and ends with more hype songs like “Basement Freestyle” and “Backyard.” This breakup of tracks is great for keeping listeners engaged all the way through. Because of this, the album’s replayability is amazing.

To end things off, “DAYS BEFORE RODEO” is between great and amazing. With this, the album gets a 7 out of 10 from me.