“Yes, I’m here babe. What’s up, give me the dick.”
These are the first words that Tyler, The Creator says when he answers Westender’s call while running pre-tour errands in Los Angeles. The 25-year-old rapper quickly provides an explanation for his sexually charged greeting, barking, “I’m drunk! I’m drunk!”
Just a couple of minutes after this, however, he reveals that he’s actually straightedge and never touches alcohol. “I could easily go get a gun and shoot myself in the dick,” he offers as a reason for his teetotaling lifestyle. “You probably have access to a knife. Why don’t you just cut your dick off? Because you don’t want to, am I right? I just don’t want to [drink alcohol].”
These opening minutes of conversation provide a perfect introduction to Tyler, The Creator’s button-pushing personality: he’s provocative, a little gross, and full of fascinating contradictions. On the one hand, he’s been widely accused of promoting violent misogyny with his lyrics, and he’s known for using a certain homophobic slur that beings with “f”; on the other, he has released a line of gay pride-themed T-shirts and described himself in a Tumblr post as “one of the least homophobic guys to walk this Earth.” He has been banned from the UK because of his lyrical content, and he cancelled a 2015 Australian tour due to visa issues apparently stemming from feminist protests.
Over the course of this conversation, he makes numerous homoerotic quips — something that could raise eyebrows among those who have accused him of homophobia in the past.
“I like kissing guys on the mouth,” he claims at one point. When asked about his current projects, he declares, “My focus right now is Caucasian males and salad dressing.” He then goes on a lengthy spiel about his plans to launch a salad dressing company with his friend Jasper Dolphin, and I’m left unsure about where the jokes end and reality begins.
For a multi-hyphenate artist like Tyler, a brand of salad dressing sounds like a plausible next step. He is the ringleader of the (now mostly defunct) hip-hop collective Odd Future, has a clothing label called Golf Wang, makes visual art, directs music videos, and previously spearheaded the sketch comedy show Loiter Squad on Adult Swim.
When making music, he does all of his own production, and his kaleidoscopic vision shines on 2015’s full-length Cherry Bomb. Opener “Deathcamp” charges forward with head-banging rock riffs and Tyler’s gruff snarl, while “Fucking Young/Perfect” is an R&B slow jam about the inner turmoil that results from falling in love with an underage teenager. Many rap fans will inevitably gravitate towards “Smuckers,” which contains high-profile guest verses from Kanye West and Lil Wayne and finds Tyler brashly declaring, “Cherry Bomb [is] the greatest fucking album since the days of sound.”
The lyrics across the album’s 13 tracks are less inflammatory than the ones that Tyler was known for writing as a teen. That being said, he’s hardly censoring himself: the venomous “Buffalo” takes aim at those who have criticized his homophobic epithets, and it’s hard to imagine a more graphically sexual song than the cunnilingus-exalting “Blow My Load.”
“I’m just making what I want to listen to,” Tyler says of his current musical direction. “When I was 17, 18, 19, saying crazy shit was fun. Like, ‘Awwww yeah, watch this lady get pissed off at this!’ But now it’s more about just making cool shit.”
Although the international controversy surrounding the rapper isn’t likely to die down anytime soon, this hasn’t hindered his prolific artistry: in June, he released a new single called “My Ego” and shared a remix of Zayn’s “Pillowtalk.” He’s got a busy summer tour schedule, which includes a slot at the local Pemberton Festival, and he’s even signed on as a voice actor in the upcoming animated feature The Adventures of Drunky (alongside Sam Rockwell, Jeffrey Tambor and Steve Coogan).
Given his diverse output, it’s difficult to know what to expect from him next. But there’s one thing that we definitely won’t hear from Tyler anytime soon: any apologies for his contentious early lyrics. “I was young, it was cool at the time,” he offers. “I’m not sorry for it at all. It sucks that people go back to that stuff and decide to not allow me to travel as I please, but I’ll get over it. Everything will work itself out.”
