Travis Scott brings the final note to Nolan’s The Odyssey
The rapper’s end-credits track “When I’m Home,” with James Blake and Ludwig Goransson, has landed as the film reaches theaters.
By Poppy Nakagawa · Culture Writer
2 min read
Travis Scott is helping send audiences out of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey with a new end-credits track built for the long road home.
Rolling Stone reported that “When I’m Home,” Scott’s collaboration with James Blake and composer Ludwig Goransson, has arrived on streaming services as Nolan’s film reaches theaters. The song closes the director’s big-screen retelling of Homer’s Greek epic.
Scott also appears in the movie in a small role as a bard, according to Rolling Stone. That detail gives the track a neat bit of symmetry: the rapper is not just contributing music from outside the film, he is tied into Nolan’s version of the ancient story on screen as well.
A mythic closer with modern bite
Rolling Stone described “When I’m Home” as a spectral track that folds Homeric imagery into contemporary rap writing. The song nods to Odysseus’ grueling voyage, with Scott’s verses invoking a beach, a god, blunt tools and a Siren as part of the journey.
Blake takes on the Siren role within the song, according to Rolling Stone, bringing his recognizable vocal style into the spaces between Scott’s verses. The report described the production under him as minimal, leaving room for the vocal contrast between the two artists.
Goransson is the third major name in the collaboration. Rolling Stone identified him as the force steering the music across the track, and noted that he is a three-time Academy Award winner for Best Original Score.
His Oscar wins cited by Rolling Stone are for Black Panther, Sinners and Nolan’s Oppenheimer. That makes “When I’m Home” another link between Nolan and a composer who has already been central to one of the director’s biggest recent films.
Why Nolan brought Scott aboard
Nolan has previously explained why Scott fit his version of The Odyssey. In comments reported by Rolling Stone, the director said he cast Scott because he wanted to acknowledge that the story began as oral poetry, a tradition he compared with rap.
The collaboration also extends a working relationship around Nolan’s films. Rolling Stone noted that Scott contributed “The Plan” to Nolan’s 2020 movie Tenet, with Goransson producing that song.
For The Odyssey, the pieces line up differently: Scott appears in the film, Blake adds an otherworldly voice to the closing song, and Goransson helps frame the sound. The result, according to Rolling Stone’s report, is a credits track that directly echoes the film’s mythic journey while keeping one foot in Scott’s own musical world.
This story draws on original reporting from Rolling Stone.