Songfacts®:

• Astroworld's most introspective track, "Stop Trying to Be God" finds Travis Scott delivering two verses about remembering where you came from and not developing a God complex. Kid Cudi and Phillip Bailey croon the hook, while James Blake's melodic vocals bring it all home. Stevie Wonder's harmonica adds the final bells and whistles to the cut.
• Kid Cudi is Scott's favorite artist of all time and he admitted to MTV that he cried the first time he met the rapper born Scott Mescudi. This song is their fourth collaboration. The pair first worked together on two tracks from Travis' sophomore release Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight, "Way Back" and "Through The Late Night." The Houston rapper then appeared on "Baptized in Fire" from Cudi's Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin'.
• The Dave Meyers-directed music video is loaded with Biblical imagery. James Blake, Kid Cudi, Philip Bailey and Stevie Wonder all appear with the Houston rapper in the fire-and-brimstone clip along with his girlfriend Kylie Jenner, who portrays an angel comforting Scott as their house goes up in flames.
• Travis Scott first hooked up with Stevie Wonder when he did the Motown legend's 16th birthday party. The conversation just started from there and Stevie came by the studio late one evening with his harmonica and played on a bunch of records. This was the one that Travis kept.
• This song took a year for it all come together as Travis and his producer Mike Dean gradually assembled the track. Dean recalled to The Fader:
  
  "Travis had the first part done and it just developed. I got a call one day that Stevie was coming to the studio and I was like, 'I'll be right there.' I recorded his harmonica. Like, I never record people very much anymore. I just get somebody else to do that. With Stevie, I'm not gonna switch to someone else."
• At the Grammy Awards in 2019, Scott performed this with James Blake and members of Earth, Wind & Fire before entering a cage to do "No Bystanders."