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Travis Scott breaks silence on Astroworld Festival tragedy during sit-down interview

In his first interview about the Astroworld Festival disaster, Travis Scott insisted he had no idea about the crowd crush that occurred while he was performing.

The Sicko Mode rapper was headlining his festival in Houston, Texas on 5 November when the crowd surged, resulting in 10 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

The 30-year-old shared his initial reaction to the tragedy on social media shortly after the incident but has kept a low profile for the past month. However, he has now opened up about the tragedy in a sit-down interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God.

In the chat, which was released on YouTube on Thursday, Scott insisted he didn't know about the injuries and deaths during his set.

"I didn't know the exact details until minutes before the press conference (after my set)," he said. "And even at that moment you're like, 'Wait, what?'... People pass out, things happen at concerts, but something like that, it's just like... (trails off)."

Scott, who had paused his set earlier in the show to check on fans, denied hearing distressed calls from the crowd to stop the set.

"It's so crazy because I'm that artist too - anytime you can hear something like that, you want to stop the show," he insisted. "You want to make sure fans get the proper attention they need. Anytime I could see anything like that, I did. I stopped it a couple times to just make sure everybody was OK. And I really just go off the fans' energy as a collective - call and response. I just didn't hear that. I've got my music, I've got my in-ears (monitors), I just didn't hear that."

When asked how much responsibility he takes for what happened, he replied, "Fans come to the show to have a good experience. I have a responsibility to figure out what happened here, I have a responsibility to figure out the solution."

He added that he hopes this is the "first step" toward better concert safety and for artists and organisers to come together as a collective to "make sure it never happens again".

Scott is known for encouraging his fans to "rage" at his shows. When Charlamagne asked if this may have contributed to the incident, the music star insisted the term meant "letting go and having fun" instead of "being harmful".

He went on to explain that although the media "want to put it on me" as the face and instigator of the festival, he was only in charge of the creative and put his trust in professionals to handle security, staffing and other logistics.

When asked to address those affected by the tragedy, he stated he was "in this with you guys" and he will "always be there to help you guys heal."

Scott has been named as a defendant in nearly 200 lawsuits relating to the festival.