A less careful listener may simply dismiss Travis Scott and Aubrey “Drake” Graham’s hit song Sicko Mode as a mere modern pop trap record, perhaps noting the song’s strange choice of three different beats before requesting a change of song to Shack Wes’ Mo Bamba. The risk of such negligent listening is to miss the song’s true message: the story of a young man exploring his sexuality.

The first beat of the song is mild and unassuming – a careful allegory chosen to represent our society’s heteronormativity. When our protagonist is in the stage this song describes (i.e. has still not come out), by obeying the heterosexual norms of society, he is repressed just like the beat of the song. Aubrey “Drake” Graham (hereby solely referred to as Drake), plays a close friend of our protagonist. He notes that as for heterosexuality, “that shit all he know, he don’t know nothin’ else”. Unable to see our hero living a lie, our artists take action by awakening the protaganist’s true sexuality (“I tried to show him, yea I tried to show him”). Their attempt is successful, as they note our character is “goin’ on you with the pick and roll”. For readers unfamiliar with basketball, a pick and roll involves a player forcing a defender to switch to defending him by setting up a screen. These words are accompanied by a beat switch – and also accompanied by our character’s switch of sexuality.

The second beat is more aggressive and powerful, consistent with our character’s newfound interest in masculinity.

Different coloured chains, think my jeweller really sellin’ fruits

He immediately affirms his new sexuality by buying multicoloured jewellery, which is associated with gay pride. Furthermore “fruit” is common slang for homosexuals, further alluding to his jeweller selling symbols of homosexuality.

Most of these girls ain’t got a clue

Not only does our character no longer see women as potential sexual partners, he goes so far as to deride their intelligence as a whole.

We ain’t even make it to room.
She thought it was the ocean, it’s just a pool.

Here, as a woman attempts to engage in promiscuous behaviour, our hero denies her access to his room (and therefore himself). Furthermore, he corrects her – his desire for women cannot be compared to the vast ocean, but just a small pool, by comparison practically non-existent.

However, due to the anti-homosexual sentiments still present in many American communities, our protagonist is unable to sustain his true desires. Once they find out, he is physically assaulted and knocked “out like a light (ey-uh)” (emphasis mine). The beat change here again represents another change in his life. He must settle for practising his sexuality in secret and pretending to obey heterosexual norms.

He regrets this as he notes “this shit got double bedroom”. He unfortunately has to physically separate each of his sexualities – one bedroom for the women in his life, and another for the men. He must publicly proclaim “checks over stripes” (stripes on a multi coloured flag represent homosexuality). Despite his suffering, our strong and resilient protagonist still endures:

See the shots that I took (Ayy), wet like I’m Book (Ayy)
Wet like I’m Lizzie

He is able to get wet (i.e. ejaculate) both with Book (presumably a man) and Lizzie (presumably a woman), effectively leading his double life.

Unfortunately, as the song title suggests, he is eventually unable to conclusively assert his preferences. He remains in fear of being branded a “sicko”, and this song is a sad reminder of that time his peers had thought he entered “sicko mode” (i.e homosexuality). Travis Scott’s wakeup call for America (and more generally, the world at large) to accept what is a natural phenomenon is brave, commendable, and well crafted.

For those further interested, my colleagues DJ Splash Drip and Kusorare have continued analysis along these lines in their song “Dicko Mode”.