TYLER THE CREATOR
At the center of the Odd Future inferno is 20-year- old Tyler, The Creator, the crew’s primary attention-getter, troublemaker, and ringleader. Born Tyler Okonma, and raised in various neighborhoods in L.A., he released his first album, Bastard, in 2009 without the support of a record label, simply uploading it onto the Internet. As of this writing, the music video for “Yonkers,” the first single from his second album, Goblin, which was released this past spring (via an actual record label, XL), has had more than 13 million views on YouTube.
As a rapper, Tyler’s distinguishing mark is his ability to alternately come off as nerdy, nasty, poetic, threatening, disgusting, and funny in his songs— sometimes all at the same time. Endowed with a grav- elly voice that’s impossibly deep for his lanky frame, his flow is both relentlessly hostile and astonishingly imaginative. But unlike Eminem, to whom his multidirectional rage has been compared, Tyler doesn’t serve up the clear narratives or clever endings; instead, he spits out a chaotic pastiche of violent images and non sequiturs, a hurricane of lyrical attention deficit disorder, always venting some unseen, unbearable internal pressure. There is something vicious and delicious about the texture of Tyler’s rapping, a breathless stream of craggy, sharp words that careen from the personal to the sci-fi, held together only barely by some impossible internal logic. Though Tyler’s rhymes might not be socially redeeming or even make much sense at times—he has been harshly criticized for his use of homophobic and misogynistic slurs in his lyrics, as well as for the violent imagery contained therein, and his subsequent defense of youthful ignorance has fallen on largely unsympathetic ears—it all seems to be part of some 21st-century approach to agitprop punk rock posturing: energetically nihilistic and unapologetic about the fact that nothing really adds up.
As a rapper, Tyler’s distinguishing mark is his ability to alternately come off as nerdy, nasty, poetic, threatening, disgusting, and funny in his songs— sometimes all at the same time. Endowed with a grav- elly voice that’s impossibly deep for his lanky frame, his flow is both relentlessly hostile and astonishingly imaginative. But unlike Eminem, to whom his multidirectional rage has been compared, Tyler doesn’t serve up the clear narratives or clever endings; instead, he spits out a chaotic pastiche of violent images and non sequiturs, a hurricane of lyrical attention deficit disorder, always venting some unseen, unbearable internal pressure. There is something vicious and delicious about the texture of Tyler’s rapping, a breathless stream of craggy, sharp words that careen from the personal to the sci-fi, held together only barely by some impossible internal logic. Though Tyler’s rhymes might not be socially redeeming or even make much sense at times—he has been harshly criticized for his use of homophobic and misogynistic slurs in his lyrics, as well as for the violent imagery contained therein, and his subsequent defense of youthful ignorance has fallen on largely unsympathetic ears—it all seems to be part of some 21st-century approach to agitprop punk rock posturing: energetically nihilistic and unapologetic about the fact that nothing really adds up.
Interview contributing music editor Dimitri Ehrlich and Southern crunk rapper Waka Flocka Flame, a favorite of the Odd Future camp, recently caught up with Tyler by phone in Los Angeles, where he was out to lunch with his mother.
DIMITRI EHRLICH: So where are you now?
TYLER, THE CREATOR: I’m with my mom. I got an interview at 2 p.m., but she’s still insisting we go out and eat. We just got our food, so now I’m in the car because I can’t eat and talk in Roscoe’s. It’s too loud. So, you know, she’s pissed now ’cause in her head she’s like, “Well, he can’t make any time for me.” But I’m like, “Ah, well, I have a fuckin’ career now . . . ” So now it’s just awkward.
EHRLICH: Yeah, I understand.
KELLY CLANCY, TYLER’S MANAGER: Tyler, you’re gonna make it to the house by 2:30 p.m., right?
TYLER: Probably not.
CLANCY: We have to be there by 3 p.m.
TYLER: [pauses] Tell them I got attacked by a dragon.
CLANCY: No, no. [laughs] You’re gonna be there at 3 p.m.
TYLER: Dude, trust me—the dragon thing works. [Interview editorial assistant Ashley Simpson jumps on the line to conference in Waka Flocka Flame.]
ASHLEY SIMPSON: This is Ashley with Interview magazine calling with Tyler, The Creator. Do you have Waka?
ASHLEY SIMPSON: This is Ashley with Interview magazine calling with Tyler, The Creator. Do you have Waka?
PORTIA KIRKLAND, WAKA FLOCKA FLAME’S MANAGER: Yes, we do. We have Waka.
SIMPSON: Great!
TYLER: The dragon thing works . . .
SIMPSON: Hi, Waka?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Hello?
SIMPSON: I have Tyler and Dimitri.
FLAME: What up, dog?
TYLER: Whassup, nigga?
FLAME: Killin’ it.
TYLER: This is awkward as fuck right now.