Tyler, The Creator – GOBLIN

April 30, 2011 6 comments


Tyler The Creator – Tron Cat

Tyler the Creator, ring leader of Hip-hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, will soon be releasing his second solo album, Goblin.

Click here to stream snippets from the album at amazon.com

Tyler is merely 20 years old — he began to blow up at the same time as Lil B, the impetuous BasedGod of the Internets — but we digress.

Tyler’s already cranked out product of significant quality (Tyler doesn’t smoke weed might be the explanation — just sticks to Ritalin, Xanax and Albuterol. Inspirational drugs…at least when they don’t leave you shaking..)

For the uninitiated, OFWGKTA is a Los Angeles based ragtag band of skateboarding teenagers who are here to give hip-hop a wakeup call. They see the hip hop scene as little more than middle aged absent fathers bragging about the Gucci they wear or the Ferrari they drive, and are aiming to bring some big changes.


[Odd future is] showin’ you and yours that breakin’ rules is fuckin’ cool again.

Profane and proud, these teens have recently blown up thanks to their both crude and clever lyricism. Their chief influences? Eminem, skateboards. Their subject matter? Rapping about rape, dismemberment, not having a father (hence Tyler’s mixtape, Bastard) and the struggle his absence caused, OF knows how to tap into the abundant anger that most (especially adolescents) have bottled up. The difficulties cause by an absent father are a recurring theme in Odd Future’s music. For example, prodigy Earl Sweatshirt’s Stapleton


[We are] Product of popped rubbers and pops that did not love us
So when I leave home keep my heart on the top cupboard

One can easily make the connection between Odd Future and early punk rockers in the mid-to-late 70’s. Both are disillusioned with their peers and their parents, feature emphatic performances and macabre lyrics — both have wild shows with crowds shouting chant-like hooks. Perhaps most importantly, Odd Future and punk rockers share the same ethos: Fuck you. Fuck this genre, it’s time to demonlish this building and put up something better. Maybe this is what Eminem would have sounded like if Dr. Dre hadn’t tamed him..

Can OWFGKTA transform from a cultist cult hit into a huge meme? In a word: probably. The Wolf Gang’s commercial success has yet to be determined, because in true digital native style, all of Odd Future’s mixtapes and members’ solo albums have been given away free. Goblin will be the first album released in stores after Tyler signed a one album contract with XL.

The video for Yonkers, a Goblin’ single, currently has over four million views. Well, what’s not to love about a song that starts like this?


I’m a fuckin’ walkin’ paradox, no I’m not
.
DENIAL! It’s not just a river in Egypt..Also cliches aren’t just for Rap Geniuses.

Tyler is preforming this song as his more villainous alter ego, Wolf Hayley (note it rhymes with Slim Shady — (Sorry about the random association. We are idiots) Tyler considers Eminem a huge influence). Whereas Tyler is depressed, Wolf is angry. Where he’s suicidal, Wolf is murderous. While Tyler is straight edge, i.e., he abstains from recreational drugs, Wolf has no such qualms.

The b-side to “Yonkers”, “Sandwitches”, was preformed on Jimmy Fallon — a breakthrough performance for Odd Future (note Mos Def screaming “swag! swag!” at the end).

For a skater dude with psychotherapy issues, Tyler remains quite the devoted wordsmith, displaying his lyrical prowess on his album (unlike certain rappers whose albums reek of junior high..):


I’m clockin’ three past six and goin’ postal
This the revenge of the dicks, that’s nine cocks that cock nines
This ain’t no V Tech shit or Columbine
But after bowlin’, I went home for some damn Adventure Time

In the same breath, Tyler makes references to both the massacres at Virginia Tech and at Columbine, and the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time — details meant to stress the banality of life in the Age of Television. (Yes we just literally recapped what you just read. It’s cuz we think you’re dumb.)

Enshrouded in the Wolf Haley persona, Tyler has no problem making celebrity threats, either (reminiscent of Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady”..)


(What you think of Hayley Williams?) Fuck her, Wolf Haley robbin’ ‘em
I’ll crash that fuckin’ airplane that that faggot nigga B.o.B is in
And stab Bruno Mars in his goddamn esophagus
And won’t stop until the cops come in

A line that expresses perfectly how I’ve felt, personally, every time I’ve heard the song “Airplanes”. Interestingly, these lines actually inspired B.o.B to record the diss track “No Future” — tellingly, B.o.B. was too scared to admit the track was a diss..

What are you so scared of, B.o.B.? A rapper who can’t stop obsessing about his therapist?. A rapper who’s previous job was as a hat model?

Goblin is coming out May 10th.

Tracklist
1. Goblin
2. Yonkers
3. Radicals
4. She
5. Transylvania
6. Nightmare
7. Tron Cat
8. Her
9. Sandwitches
10. Fish
11. Analog
12. BSD
13. Window
14. AU79
15. Goldenrules