Since the album’s first ambiguous name drop in 2020, Travis Scott’s Utopia has been a mysterious, fleeting and yet almost constant presence in the world of hip hop. Scott is a master of keeping fans on the edge, and for more than two years fans have been eating up his mysterious tweets, billboards and paparazzi shots—all without official release details. With promotion for Utopia intensifying in recent months, the question on all of our minds is:

When is Travis Scott dropping Utopia?

[Update 28 Jul 2023] At the time of writing, Utopia has been unleashed from Travis Scott’s vault, and into the world. AKA La Flame has always been indulgent with the scale of his productions, and he’s been successful—for the most part.

The marketing for the album has been Herculean with a purportedly A24 film to go along with the livestreamed album launch at the Pyramids of Giza. But as fate would have it, the show was indefinitely cancelled, with each production party offering their own reasons.

Live Nation finally acquiesced to Mother Nature due to the complexities of putting on the show in the desert. The Egyptian Musicians Syndicate however, issued a statement for denying the permit because the concert “goes against the cultural identity of the Egyptian people” along with reports that concluded “authenticated images and information about peculiar rituals performed by [Scott] during his performance”.

It’s a rare setback for Travis Scott but he’s had enough success that this will be a minor blimp in his legacy.

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Here’s the facts in short. Travis Scott will be launching Utopia through a performance at the Pyramids of Giza on 28 July. Though tickets for “Utopia Live at the Pyramids” sold out almost as soon as they were released, the launch party will still be live-streamed for fans around the world to watch.

There currently isn’t official information about whether Utopia will become available to stream and download on this date, or whether the Utopia release date will fall before or after the launch party.

In a show of support, Jordan Brand, collaborator and yet another creative outlet for Travis Scott, released “Road to Utopia” sweepstakes on 11th July (registration now closed). 23 lucky pairs of fans will have the chance to go through an all-expenses-paid Jordan Brand’s “Travis Scott Utopia Experience” at the Egypt launch party. Though the exact details of this experience are unknown, it’s likely to be a dream come true for Travis Scott and sneaker fans alike.

The Weeknd, Bad Bunny and Mike Dean are key collaborators and producers

Scott has come a long way since the days of Owl Pharaoh (2013), Rodeo (2014) and being Kanye West’s protégé. With his current level of international stardom and influence, the star-studded list of collaborators teased for Utopia is nothing new to Scott. Among the list are A-listers like The Weeknd, Bad Bunny and SZA, all of whom have been pictured with the ‘Utopia briefcase’–ostensibly indicating their involvement in the project. Travis has also indicated a vision to collaborate with new artists and “expand the sound” of the album, teasing collaborations with rising stars in the industry such as James Blake, Roddy Rich and more.

Of all the collaborations, the most official is definitely Mike Dean’s executive production on the album. In a May 2023 tweet that has since been deleted, the famed hip hop producer, engineer and songwriter Dean stated (or shouted) that “UTOPIA WILL BE DONE WHEN TRAV AND I SAY ITS DONE”, indicating clear as day that he is playing a pivotal role in the production of the album.

Dean also held executive production credits throughout Scott’s hit album Astroworld, so this news comes as no surprise to us.

Travis’s mountain of Utopia teasers

Travis Scott has left behind a long and winding trail of breadcrumbs for fans to mull over, with social media posts, public appearances, billboards, off-handed comments at performances and interviews and leaked demos all fitting together into one massive, speculative puzzle. It takes a discerning eye to sift through and decipher this mountain of information, and here’s the key information we’ve found (with the help of Scott’s detective fanbase):

We can expect some sort of release on 21st July, a week before the Utopia Live at the Pyramids launch party. This is derived from two cryptic billboards (pictured above) unveiled in late June, with one depicting an analogue clock set at the time 7:21, and the other showing a combination lock set to 0-7-2-1-1 (though the ‘7’ dial appears to be stuck between the numbers 7 and 8).

Many initially believed 07/21 to be the release date of the full album, but with the 28th July launch party in mind, we’re likely to instead see the release of key singles from the album on 21st July.

Utopia will have five album covers

Utopia will be releasing with five different album covers. After Travis Scott’s online shop released listings for pre-sale of the album’s vinyls, CDs and merch bundles, fans realized that there were five listings for each item category, indicating that each bundle’s record will have one of the five unique covers.

Speaking of album covers, during the recording phase of Utopia, Scott was pictured recreating The Beatles’ iconic Abbey Road album cover, simultaneously paying homage to the sensational band, as well as confirming that he was recording the album in the fabled Abbey Road studios.

What should we expect from Utopia?

In 2021, Travis hinted that Utopia would lean into a more psychedelic rock-esque sound, which might have been inspired by his collaboration with Tame Impala on “SKELETONS” in Astroworld. Of course, this interview took place more than two years ago, and it’s not unheard of for artists to take an album’s sound in a completely different direction from what they initially envisioned.

However, what has been constant across Scott’s narrative about the album was that he wants to deliver “a whole new sound, a whole new range”. In the end, no matter what sub-genres the album leans towards, we can definitely expect a vibe we’ve never seen from Travis before.

Travis Scott’s A24 film, predictions for a tour and more–what’s next for Utopia?

[Update 28 Jul 2023] The mysterious A24 film Travis Scott teased weeks before officially titled “Circus Maximus” has finally been released in select theaters in LA. Oddly, the Oscar-winning movie studio has denied that the film was theirs despite their logo being a centerpiece in the image the artist showed.

Nevertheless, Travis Scott retains writer-director credit with many revered auteurs purported to co-direct. A class that includes Gaspar Noé, Nicolas Winding-Refn, Harmony Korine, Valdimar Jóhannsson and Kahlil Joseph.

The release schedule has been sporadic with only a single showing each day. But for what it’s worth, fans who managed to see it earlier were treated to a gift by Scott himself when he announced on X that he was leaving merch in the cinema.

For the most that aren’t in LA, fret not. Something as anticipated will eventually find itself online in the near future. Stay tuned!

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The shock value of Travis’ scheduled performance at the Pyramids of Giza currently holds the internet’s undivided attention. However, there’s another aspect to the album’s release that we’re anticipating: a Utopia film written by and starring Travis Scott himself. The film was produced by A24, the production company that produced critically acclaimed movies Everything Everywhere All At Once, Midsommar, Lady Bird, Hereditary, Moonlight and many more.

This month, the film was reportedly completed, with no other information besides two interesting points that it was “action oriented” and “shot entirely in infrared”. No movie premiere dates or information was announced, but we’re looking forward to seeing what the combined creative powers of Scott and A24 can produce.

Besides this, there’s a final question that we, along with many others, are wondering: when will the Utopia tour happen? The massive Astroworld tour kicked off approximately 3 months after the album’s release, so we might see a tour of a similar (or larger) scale beginning in late 2023. Of course, given the fact that nobody’s sure of the release date of Utopia itself, the details of the events happening after the album’s release are entirely up in the air. All that’s left is to be patient–after all, good things come to those who wait.

Images via Travis Scott, Jordan Brand, LilJupiterr, Complex, Pitchfork