The Evolution Of Tyler, The Creator’s Artistry

“…the only guidance that I had is splattered on cement,
Actions speak louder than words, let me try this sh*t, dead.” – ‘Yonkers’ by Tyler, The Creator.

The song that brought a whole new wave to hip hop and catapulted Tyler, The Creators career, also led him to being banned from entering several countries. After starting 2010 testing the limits of shock with Odd Future, the rapper’s journey to mellow and sincere has been even more radical.

A Multifaceted Artist

In addition to music-making, Tyler (born Tyler Okonma) has helped devise three different TV shows, designed a number of apparel lines,  developed a signature ice-cream flavor and a scent for a scented candle company. He’s also built an annual L.A.-based music festival, named Camp Flog Gnaw, that’s grown big enough since its 2012 debut to take over Dodger Stadium two years running.

The rapper rose to prominence in the early 2010s as the co-founder and de facto leader of alternative hip hop group Odd Future and has performed on and produced songs for nearly every Odd Future release. Today marks the 10 year anniversary of his single ‘Yonkers’.

Tyler’s fans have come to include both veterans, like Pharrell Williams and Dave Chappelle, and a younger generation of kids who came of age looking up to him. “In my mind, I always thought playing Flog Gnaw would mean I’d made it,” says pop phenomenon Billie Eilish, who performed at the festival in 2018. Tyler’s long been one of her biggest influences. “I’ll always be grateful to him for making me who I am,” she says.

To listen to one of Tyler’s creations is to immerse oneself in an ever-expanding, interconnected universe of his own eccentric construction.

A Megalomaniac Or A Visionary?

The rapper’s initial interest in delicate, dreamy sounds is present on his first release, 2009’s ‘Bastard’. For years he made bashful love songs across practically all of his albums, carefully placing beautiful chords and ’90s neo-soul.

However, when the mainstream media began writing regularly about Odd Future in 2011 especially, all conversations returned to questions of morality.  Was this music playfully transgressive or just misogynistic and homophobic?

News reports show that Tyler Okonma was banned from the entering the UK in 2015 by (then) home secretary Theresa May due to claims that his lyrics encouraged “violence and intolerance of homosexuality”. He was also banned from Australia and New Zealand.

In 2014 Odd Future was actually refused the right to play an Auckland festival. NZ Immigration officials “deemed [the group] to be a potential threat to public order and the public interest for several reasons, including incidents at past performances in which they have incited violence,” according to sources.

But in recent years, the rapper has mellowed. On his recent albums, he doesn’t sound settled, but his self is no longer so enthralled by the possible reactions to physical and emotional violence, or various slurs; he works with a different mindset, more interested in melancholic longing, and wistful sincerity. Many will argue that his initial releases were that of a young rebel trying to make sense of his world. Tyler, The Creator’s most offensive material, save the game-changing ‘Yonkers’ is no longer part of his repertoire, a repertoire that solely focuses on inclusivity.

By: Anjana Sathyanarayan

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