His uncle inspired his stage name.
In 2014, La Flame told Grantland, “My uncle’s name is Travis. He was like my favorite uncle. My favorite relative. I looked up to him and shit. That nigga was just cool as f—k. He always just had swag. He played golf and shit. He just had swag. That nigga was just smart. Always made good decisions, good business decisions.”
Additionally, Travis has said many times that his favorite artist of all time is Kid Cudi, so it’s rumored that the second half of his stage moniker comes from Cudi’s birth name, Scott Mescudi.
He hates sour cream.
As Trav’ told Complex, the first time he met Kanye West in the studio, ‘Ye offered Scott a Doritos Locos Taco from Taco Bell. Unfortunately, Travis couldn’t eat it because it was loaded up with sour cream—that is, until Kanye asked him why. And though all of Travis’ boys in the room knew, he ended up toughing it out because the moment was too good to spoil.
“First thing he gave me was a Doritos taco from Taco Bell. He’s like, ‘Yo you want a taco?’ I was like, ‘Yeah!’ He gave it to me on this fancy ass platter, like some Hermes shit. What’s crazy is, I don’t eat like sour cream. So I opened it and that shit was loaded with sour cream! He’s like ‘Why aren’t you eating it?’ All my niggas know that shit would make me throw up. But I ate the whole shit! [Laughs.] I wasn’t going to be like, ‘No, I’m not fucking with this taco man. You put this shit on this nice plate, but I’m not about to eat it.’ That taco was so fucking disgusting. But man, I wouldn’t even notice it.”
He quit playing piano because of girls.
Simply put, the keys weren’t helping Trav’ get as many girls as he would have liked, so he decided to direct his passion toward producing. He told Complex, “Growing up I played the drums and then I played piano. I quit playing piano because it wasn’t getting no bitches. I was making beats because, like, the electronic sound was getting all the hoes. Like, ‘I’m a rapper, bitch.’ But when Kanye came out it was like, ‘Yo, that’s producing .’ I was like, ‘Man, like what the f—k? Now I got to learn to make beats?’”
This transition would eventually lead Travis to ditch high school classes to go make beats with the legendary Mike Dean.
His family cut him off.
Well, the estrangement happened when he decided to drop out of the University of Texas. He told Complex, “I was in my room and I was like, ‘F—k this shit.’ I lied to my mom. I was like, ‘Yo, I need mad money for books. I need a new computer.’ And somehow they got me the money and I spent that shit on, like, living. Bought me a plane ticket next day, dipped out to New York, and I started grinding, man.”
Understandably, this series of events led to Travis’ family fully cutting him off.
He once sacrificed his bed for a studio.
In a 2013 interview with DJ Semtex, Scott admitted that during his time in high school, his grind was so serious, “I turned my bedroom into a full-blown studio, like, f—k the bed, f—k everything, man; I slept in a chair. Shit was just, like, real.”