Tyler the Creator

new shit https://www.callmeifyougetlost.com

cmon guys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJea386275c

loved flower boy, was indifferent to igor, cautiously optimistic about this?

i will forever be interested in Tyler, no matter what he does musically

heck, i may already be more interested in *him* than his music

his music is definitely not very interesting

you're definitely mistaken

I can't say his flow has really improved at all over the past ten years. Stylistically it seems mostly like edgy Soundcloud-type rap?

So Billie Ellish just got called out on Tiktok for some ten year old video featuring her singing the Tyler song Fish, which apparently has some anti-Asian racism in it. Did I miss the part where he got called out for writing the song, or does he get a pass on Tiktok?

women are held to a higher standard on that

"fish" was from the time when tyler was also being wildly homophobic & misogynist everywhere so i think anyone who was already giving him a pass on all the other shit wasn't going to care about another racial slur thrown in. that shit all sucked at the time and still sucks now though.

i think the whole kerfuffle is a result of stan wars and tyler doesn’t have that kind of fanbase, and isn’t perceived as a threat to ariana grande’s pop supremacy or whatever, so they focus on billie instead (yes it’s 2021 and tyler, the creator fans are the relatively well-adjusted ones)

still love flower boy, igor didn’t impress me at first but has grown on me tremendously

i’ll always have a soft spot for that album for keeping dj khaled from going number one and thereby influencing him to trounce through the sony building in new york and yell at everyone for letting him down

(tyler, the creator is also a sony music artist)

xxp Though Pitchfork’s brief piece on Billie’s apology (which deployed some mighty weasel words like “she now claims”) also simply linked to the Tyler song on YT – and their 8.0 review of the album – without really interrogating the point of why it’s ok for Tyler to say it. (The TMZ article they linked to, which was better than theirs, actually did mention it at the end!)

(it's also telling that they don't frame it in the context of stan wars, just - "an old video which surfaced on TikTok over the weekend," or whatever)

Why telling? (If I'm missing an obvious point, I blame insomnia -- in which case you can just tell me to get some sleep and leave it at that.)

__

I should also note that while I don't really rate his new work highly in general, his guest verse on 327 was a standout for me last year.

new album is really pretty good, production is lovely & lush same as the last two

Yeah respectfully Lumberjack is the only track off it I gave a close listen to, and I wouldn't call it lovely or lush. What gives, is it my headphones? Could you give any particularly lush recommendation from the release?

RUNITUP, LEMONHEAD, MASSA so far

"wusyaname", "hot wind blows", "massa", "run it up", "sweet / i thought you wanted to dance", "rise" and "safari" are all pretty lush?

obviously "lumberjack" is going for a different thing

I'm loving this, the first Tyler that I really feel like I can enjoy instead of admiring and respecting it

but I'm not very invested in Tyler and his whole narrative, this is a just a really fun and quirky backpack rap album which is what I'm into

same reason I will always love uknowwhatimsayin? by Danny Brown more than Atrocity Exhibition

i skimmed this, some cool & fun production which is a refreshing change of pace, still not really into him as a rapper

wtf the wayne verse on this is so good lol

the youngboy verse is insane also

i went back to igor and yeah the new one's a lot better than it. igor was him experimenting & is more about the vibes than anything else, it really de-emphasises the vocals & ends up feeling kinda formless as a result, and his different vocal style doesn't really mesh as well with his production? like his gravelly voice was important for anchoring his sound, so with him avoiding that the balance is off & the contrast between the lush higher end & the distorted bass/drums of his style clashes more.

while the new one is just playing to his established strengths from flower boy and might be even better than it too. "this is a just a really fun and quirky backpack rap album which is what I'm into" otm

love all three, it's his imperial phase I reckon
what's good: when this dropped my 19yo daughter, who had been going out of her mind waiting, didn't know - so I got to tell her, and then we synced up streams while I was at work.

xpost

Right, upper MS shakedown OTM.

Out of what's been recommended so far, Massa is the strongest to me. The second half of it is really what I was hoping for from him, but it still sounds like through much of this material he's bored; or despite the braggadocio about how courageous he is, he's still quite guarded.

this is the first thing of his that's completely clicked for me I think

BET AWARDS 2021: LUMBERJACK @BET <3 LOVE pic.twitter.com/Bqzh7dLMxl

— Tyler, The Creator (@tylerthecreator) June 28, 2021

hooked on the first listen to the new stuff. not been fussed since the early days

DAE feel like odd future were the last exciting & punk thing to happen to music. nothing has been as forward and fun in identity since

show streaming right now https://twitch.tv/amazonmusic

this is pretty great on first listen

holding up very nicely in the rising heat

am I the only person who has had the opposite reaction? two listens and this doesn't grab me the way Igor or Flower Boy did.

I loved Igor but have had a hard time getting into this one despite it sounding fairly similar to me. Guest verses are quite strong throughout, though. He still seems like a singular artist with a sound that I don't hear much precedence for and/or followers. Thoughts? Someone mentioned Soundcloud rap up thread...this doesn't sound anything like what I think of when I think of Soundcloud rap?

i love ‘wilshire’

I think it's a pretty great one - I've listened a lot over the weeks since its release and haven't tired of it. Interesting to see him reaching for the oldschool vibe, classic beats, DJ Drama as hypeman etc., while the content is pushing a global perspective as the antidote to 'hood vibes. Him saying "call me when you get lost" is a challenge, not a safety net. Anyway for me this music and especially IGOR feels like I feel about Frank Ocean, the artist's own emotional voyage is the centrepiece, the lyrics and bars are a tapestry of moods and anecdotes which give a complex character portrait which I find really engaging. Also "Juggernaut" slams. Thanks for reading my essay.

also the crossover between "I Thought You Wanted to Dance" and Steve McQueen's LOVERS ROCK is cool

this is illuminating (and beautiful) https://www.vogue.com/article/tyler-mitchell-and-tyler-the-creator-talk-picnics-dreaming-and-mariah-carey/amp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh1pJqEXdsg

want to like that but don't.

i kinda hate his new song

i liked "noid" but the album is just fine, solid, etc. though occasionally annoying ("i thought i was dead")

it mostly just feels like he's exploring the same musical ideas at this point and they're decent enough ones, but there's little that's really exciting here

It starts really well for four tracks

i like the album overall (still don’t love “noid”)but yeah ufo otm about him recycling the same musical ideas. lots of the same melodies he’s been leaning on since flower boy.

he’s still a great producer and arranger, and the album is never boring: “hey jane,” “i killed you” and “take your mask off” are promising new colors in his palette (the chord changes in the latter remind me slightly of prefab sprout’s “nightingales”). “rah tah tah” is exactly what i want from a rappin’-ass tyler song, and “sticky” is lot of fun as a specific kind of throwback to something like the purple ribbon all-stars mixtape or cee-lo & timbaland’s “i’ll be around”

His albums compel me the week of their release, perhaps two, then vanish.

I like “sticky”

“rah tah tah” is exactly what i want from a rappin’-ass tyler song

this was the track I sat up for

Yes to "Sticky" that's still getting airplay and streaming attention

Tyler has posted various live shows over time on his Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XutD0u4W2p8

He put out a travel album at the height of pandemic shutdown and George Floyd, and now he’s got a dance album when we most need it. Wish as always that his songs weren’t so ADHD, would love 12” extended versions of some of these. Sounded good at 6 a.m. on a Monday.

Also interesting how heavy the Kendrick influence is on his flow.

this was good, def preferred the heaters in the middle (“ring ring ring,” “don’t you worry baby”) to any of the rap-first songs

idk if he is influenced by kendrick or if he’s just tapping into similar l.a. street sounds that he channeled on gnx. the “big poe” flow sounds like azchike, and “sucka free” sounds like quik via shoreline mafia

pretty sure “sucka free” samples the quik song of the same name

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/t-magazine/tyler-the-creator-dont-tap-the-glass.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sU8.HJpE.L6mSideO8ka9&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

UCLA professor interviews Tyler for NY Times fashion magazine

are people just now finding about this guy's history?

Not sure. Maybe just the success of the last 2 records and Tyler being around for a number of years now has rekindled interest in his whole career.

Isn’t/wasn’t Earl’s mom a UCLA professor?

xp - also people on Twitter and nuTwitter being completely insane

the screen shot of a gotcha I saw was about him being a troll/asshole to 18 year old Selena Gomez in 2010... which would have also made him 18 I think? And vastly less famous than Gomez at the time?

the song where he promises to stab bruno mars in the motherfucking esophagus has been determine "low-key problematic"

Not sure. Maybe just the success of the last 2 records and Tyler being around for a number of years now has rekindled interest in his whole career.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, October 22, 2025 8:36 PM (yesterday)

cracking up. classic curmudgeon post

the Magic Johnson of ILM