Mark’s Pick of the Week: Wolf by Tyler the Creator

            Tyler seems pretty self-aware.  He is talented and certainly successful in a number of different industries.  He has won awards for his videos, has a tv show, works as a graphic artist, sells a line of cloths for fellow social outcasts.  This isn’t even getting into the media empire that is OFWGKTA that he fronts, which has since become one of the most successful rap group of the decade.  Tyler does these things because he likes to do them (at least that’s what he says, and I have learned to take everything Tyler says with a grain of salt.)  He had a rough time in high school, and did all these things to escape the rough reality he had.  A lot of us probably did that.  Unlike the rest of us, people took notice and his hobbies became a career.  Getting paid to do what you love is great…unless you stop loving them, and I think that’s kind of where we have found Tyler on this album.

            “Wolf” is (apparently) the prequel to his other two albums Bastard (which was great), and Goblin (which was better). We are treated to Tyler’s (referred to as Wolf throughout the album) story about his confrontation with Sam (another one of his personas) over Salem a girl they both have feelings for.  The story is pretty cool, but luckily your enjoyment of the album shouldn’t have to hinge on it.  The individual songs themselves have a lot of emotional weight.  Throughout we have references to Tyler’s troubles at home (his absent father and deceased grandmother) and his disillusion with rap and fame in general (his fans, his haters, and insecurities).  So it’s pretty obvious by the set up that he isn’t exactly happy with his present circumstance.  So what does he do with it?  A lot actually.

            Take “Colossus”, not necessarily my favorite track, but one that pretty much sums up where Tyler feels his life is at. He is at Six Flags, and a bunch of fans come up to him wanting pictures.  They all tell him how he helped them or relate to him, and he can’t bring himself to tell them to leave him alone.  His fame and the music that these people are relating to make him feel like an outsider.  He can’t do normal stuff like ride the roller coaster without it all getting in the way.  It’s an interesting problem since his music pays his bills (he mentions his new wealth several times in the album.)  However, as any fortune cookie can tell you: Money doesn’t mean happiness.  We also have the track “Answer” which goes through a list of people Tyler wishes he could call, but wouldn’t answer his call for various reasons.  He has this phone (which you could also take as wealth and fame), but he doesn’t have anyone he would want to call who would actually answer his, so what’s the point? 

            All the serious emotions and stuff like that aside, Wolf brings the fantastic singles like the last 2 albums.  “Domo23,” “Rusty,” “Jamba,” and “Trashwang” in particular are just some really fun headbangers that are just as home on your party mix as this concept album.  Also the leader of OFWGKTA brings in the cavalry in force in this album.  Basically any member of the group you could ask for shows up at one point or another.  Hodgy Beats, Earl Sweatshirt, and Frank Ocean are three personal favorites, but there are plenty more old and new faces to enjoy.

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            Tyler is a great rapper.  He may say he’s not a good rapper, and he’s much more into jazz, and even if the last is true the first certainly isn’t.  He is just as good at the old violent, and silly stuff that was his bread and butter back in the day.  However, he is just at good at weaving in references to classic songs, comments about his old music, his public persona, previous events in his life, and other pop culture stuff.

            I don’t think Tyler is blaming anyone in particular in this album.  Instead, I think he’s trying to grasp the situation in the best way he can, through music.  On the first listen it may seem a bit self loathing, but I think it’s less about pointing out what’s bad, and just pointing out what is.  This album has quite a few ups and downs, and that’s how anyone’s life is regardless of who you are.  Tyler managed to make an album that was an appropriate follow-up to his last 2 releases, and it seems to get better with every listen.  I can’t wait for the follow up in 2015!

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New Jersey White Boy's Rap of the Week: Tyler, the Creator

Irreverent. Scary. Thought-provoking. Weird. Homophobic. Misogynistic. Amazing. Horrible. Depending on who you ask, that’s what you’d get if you asked someone to describe Tyler, The Creator. And, they’re kind of right. Sort of.

Founder and most successful member (although Frank Ocean is challenging that) of Odd Future WOLF Gang Kill Them All, usually shortened to Odd Future or OFWGKTA (who will get their own feature at some point), Tyler is generating a lot of hype, especially given the fact that he’s only 21. He pretty much does everything for him and his group; he produces, raps, makes all of the album art, and directs a bunch of their videos. He even designs some of their non-Supreme and non-Fucking Awesome clothes (although I do think his clothes are fucking awesome and supreme). He’s built himself up quite an empire, and gave a lot of people a platform to launch their own careers – Frank Ocean, Syd the Kid and Hodgy Beats all have got the attention they have because of Odd Future (along with their own natural talents). OFWGKTA, for an angry rap group founded by a kid who was in high school at the time, has become a strong force in the rap game.

He writes frequently about rape, murder, foot fetishes, and necrophilia, and frequently employs homophobic and misogynistic lines in his songs. However, he does touch some real and personal topics on various tracks. BASTARD, his first album, also dealt with a lot of his feelings about never knowing his father, although he does mention it a few times here and there on later releases. GOLBIN, his second album, focused more on the new-found fame he’s gotten, and the depressing changes surrounding that. It adds some weight to the otherwise funny, angry and “I don’t give a fuck” tones of the rest of that album. But expect to hear a lot about murder and rape. A lot of murder and rape.

However, there once again is an overarching story (yeah for my consistent taste in albums!). The story is set up in the opening track of BASTARD, where Tyler is sitting down with a therapist, Dr. TC. The first and last song bookend the visit, while the rest of the songs are supposed to be what he’s discussing with the therapist. In GOLBIN, he takes that to a new level by having Dr. TC come on in between tracks to further the story or introduce a song. He even starts the album with where the last one drops off. I won’t ruin the ending of either one, but things get real at the end of GOLBIN, and is heavily foreshadowed throughout both albums. And it sets up a fantastic and interesting ending, and I’m excited to see where he takes WOLF.

Tyler also likes to rap in characters. Currently, he’s got Wolf Haley (the evil white counterpart to Tyler, and is naturally a ginger), Ace (his depressed, suicidal lovelorn teenager), Tron Cat (the evil voice in Tyler’s head telling him to kill people, burn shit, and fuck school), and occasionally will rap as himself. It’s pretty obvious who’s rapping at the time. He’s done stuff outside of those guys, and Young Nigga, a Lil B-style rapper who loves expensive pasta. He is also airing an Adult Swim show called Loiter Squad with 3 other group mates, and looks to be a mix of 4^th wall breaking madness and low-budget sketches about random, stupid topics (i.e. hilarious, especially if you’re a AS regular). That said, Tyler, the Creator is actually a character itself, created by Tyler Okonma. Which means that the character of Tyler is making characters, and has made characters for his various songs, most notably “Sarah”, an analog for a girl who turned him down for prom, and “Dr. TC”, Tyler, the Creator’s therapist. This rabbit hole goes deep, and it’s hard to tell what’s real. But that’s the point; what’s in his head is what comes out in the songs, and who knows how much of his mind is grounded in reality.

We’ll see a departure with his next album, WOLF. It’ll focus more on the beats and less on the rapping, and be less about all the stuff I just talked about. Which may or may not be a good thing; we’ll just have to wait and see. But for those who call his “shit a bunch of horrorcore”, it might be a welcome change. But for now, we can enjoy the mosh pit, serial killer Tyler.

So peep his Yonkers video, which is probably one of his best songs and a fantastic video.