On Sunday, Travis Scott made fans happy by dropping Jackboys 2, which had Playboi Carti, Future, Don Toliver, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, GloRilla, and more. But the rapper also left a Chicago electronic band called Pixel Grip feeling confused when they heard their own song being sampled without their permission.
"travis scott sampled 'pursuit' (without permission) in his new song 'kick out,'" Pixel Grip wrote on Twitter on Monday (July 14). "I just cant stop thinking about who else extremely famous or powerful in music knows about us and even actively likes our music but refuses to throw us a fucking bone."
In a thread, they added that "even just mentioning our name or putting us on a playlist or posting us to his instagram story or anything could’ve been a really big moment for us."
The group then went on CBS to talk about it: "I can just tell immediately, because I worked so hard on this song. It's like, I can hear the bass line in the background," synth player/producer Jon Jon Freund told CBS. "I can hear the noise that swirls in the very beginning."
"It just would have meant the world if he even just tagged us or shout us out in any way, like, that would've been a huge moment for us," vocalist Rita Lukea added. "But instead, he just completely acted like we don't exist."
They said that after their tweet got attention, they received a DM from the track's co-producer, Sean Momberger, saying, "Hey the label should be reaching out to clear the sample soon." He said the song wasn't cleared prior to release. He also said he loved "Pursuit" and "knew it was special right when [he] heard it."
all three of us are bad ass producers and you’re trying to infuse an industrial / avante / dark sound in the music, consider inviting us to the stu sometime ? “kick out” is a sick tune. you might like “last laugh” from our latest release ‘percepticide: the death of reality’?
— PIXEL GRIP (@pixelgrip_music) July 15, 2025
