- Travis Scott kicked me off the stage.
And this is that story.
So this all starts in the summer of 2015.
At the time I'm working at HOT 97 as a video producer.
Go Google HOT 97 right now.
One of New York's biggest radio stations
for hip hop and R&B.
I'm working Summer Jam.
Summer Jam is one of the biggest concert series
as far as hip hop and R&B you have.
It is legendary.
When I say legendary, I mean these types of people.
Part of me is super excited.
So if you grew up in New York City,
you know exactly what Summer Jam is.
The feeling, especially if you've been.
But now I have to work the concert.
And who wants to work that long ass show?
Not this guy.
Mentally I had to prep.
The whole team gets there at nine a.m. and it's hot.
Not like regular hot, but like hot hot.
So the whole team had specific assignments.
Some people were gonna technical direct,
some people we're gonna be in the pit
video taping the artists, some people were gonna be
backstage doing interviews with all the artists.
I, me, on the other hand, was assigned to follow
one of the stations personalities around for six hours.
Following around a person talking to famous people
is like watching somebody play a bomb ass video game
but like you're not playing, you just watching.
So that was my assignment.
I had to follow Ebro Darden,
who's an amazing radio personality at HOT 97.
But I didn't wanna follow him around,
and clearly he didn't want me to either
because he pushed our assignment
from one o'clock to four o'clock.
So I asked my boss, like what am I supposed to do here?
And he was like, hey take initiative.
I don't know what that means, okay.
Had I known better, I'd a probably just fell asleep
in a port a potty somewhere, but I didn't.
I took initiative.
I said, you know what, I'm gonna go out
and I'm gonna go tape something.
Before you actually go in to Met Life Stadium,
there's a festival stage which is outside.
These performers who are about to blow up perform.
I had my wristlet which let me get into everywhere
so I went on stage, I was in back,
and people like Teyana Taylor were performing,
before Teyana Taylor was like huge.
I was filming and I had just learned
how to put cameras in slow motion,
like a week before, so I was like tooting my own horn.
It was like beep beep, you know.
I was feeling very good, I was like
wait til they see these shots!
Wait til they see the initiative I took.
I'm even on the walkie talkie like hey, go for Jameer.
So at this point in the day I'm feeling really good.
You know, I can't get in contact with Ebro
'cause he's off doing famous people stuff.
What could go wrong, you ask.
Well, I come back to the stage, it's one more act left,
guy named Travis Scott, young emerging artist from Houston.
So I hadn't heard a lot about Travis at that time,
I mean he was buzzing, he was definitely buzzing
and you could tell by the energy he had on the stage.
Just jumping around, going we're gonna rage,
let's everybody rage, (bleep) security,
rage it, right now!
And I'm like wait a minute, let's rage within reason.
So as soon as this stage goes down, I'm suing everybody.
And it's JameerLife stadium after that.
So as this whole rage is happening,
I'm in the back, I'm capturing all kind of shots,
it's looking good, I was on stage so long
his guitar player passed me a blunt.
I stay drug free so I said no thank you, sir.
But I felt like family.
Honestly, at this point in time,
this is the highlight of my day.
I mean I'm not like really working.
So then out of nowhere, music cuts off,
Travis turns around, and goes, yo bro,
(bleep) ya nerdy ass off the stage.
In my mind I'm like wow,
whoever's behind me is really gonna have a problem
on their hands because he wouldn't treat family like that.
They passed me a blunt!
But as he started coming closer and point, uh, uh,
I'm like oh, he might be talking to me.
And while we were face to face, I knew he was talking to me.
I tried to you know be cool because, you know
I acquired 401k, I acquired some dental.
Don't wanna mess up anything, that's fine, I'm fine.
So I said hey, Mr. Scott, I actually work here.
So (bleep) do your job.
You gotta get off my stage.
Two variables came up in my mind,
one from Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York.
You could punch this dude in the throat.
Second thing I'm thinking about, I'm short.
Tiny bit of a Napoleon complex
and I gotta look up at him.
Third thing I'm thinking about, let him hit you first
so that you could sue.
So as I'm thinking about all these things,
somebody from his crew is pulling me,
but at that point I didn't care.
So I asked him, I was like, so you wanna fight?
No bro, I'm an artist, I just have a reputation,
you gotta get off my stage.
And I was like (bleep) that, I don't care.
And then I saw security come and I cared a little bit.
I cared a lotta bit, and then I finally got off and left
because I said all right, he snapped me back into reality.
I'm pissed off, there's a whole bunch of people around me,
I took a minute, I woosahed, I say ooh, woosah,
woosah, wossah, chill.
And my phone started blowing up.
I forgot to take into account that this
was the first year that Summer Jam was live streaming.
So what I thought was embarrassing for me
in front of thousands of people, quickly it was
a realization that millions of people had watched this.
My girlfriend said oh my god,
we hard that you got thrown off the stairs,
are you dead?
And Twitter was on fire.
I saw a clip that went viral and I quoted it,
and I said hey, that's me LOL, I'm fine.
People started adding me throughout the day.
I was like why you mad at me 'cause I got thrown off stage.
Well you shouldn't have been there in the first place.
You a (bleep).
I'm like, you don't even know me,
but DM me your location and we can settle this right now.
So I had to deal with that the whole day
and no closure.
That's crazy right?
That's not even the apex of the story.
I haven't even told y'all the best part.
All right, so days after that I did
a interview with Complex.
He had did a interview talking about it
at our sister station at the time which is Power 106.
Just talking about like how he felt,
I spoke about how I felt.
I didn't really care, but at that time I felt like
it was closure in a sense because physically
we hadn't seen each other.
So I put it to bay.
Whole summer goes by, it's nearing the end of August
and my co-worker, one night before we had a shoot said,
"I think Travis Scott put you in his new song."
What does that mean?
Playing the song, I mean, I'm not like really impressed,
I'm like (mumbling) it's cool, this is fine Travis.
So there's a line that says out towards the end
of the song, and it says
♪ Kickin' the cameraman "off of my stage ♪
♪ 'cause I don't like how he's snappin' my angles ♪
- A fiery rage comes back over me like,
oh you really think I'm a (bleep).
Those few months that happened afterwards,
I couldn't escape it.
Every time I was at my job I heard it.
I woke up to pee, three o'clock in the morning,
you know you fall asleep when George Lopez
is playing on MTV.
Got back in my bed and the video was on.
At that point in time, I felt like he was targeting me
one on one.
I couldn't stand Travis Scott.
But that damn song, that's a good ass song.
Now, really after that, I liked his music.
I don't know how to feel about that,
and every now and again on Twitter I have to
raise my hand and be like hey, that's me.
So what's the message that you leave with
from watching this video?
Initiative, sometimes could put you
in a multi-platinum recording artist song.
(upbeat music)