Dissect - 'BASTARD' / 'GOBLIN' by Tyler The Creator | Last Song Standing (E1)

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Cole & Charles begin their journey to crown Tyler The Creator's best song ever by revisiting his first two projects Bastard and Goblin. They talk through Tyler's origin story before nominating which songs off these projects should be in contention for his best ever. Comment your favorite songs off Bastard and Goblin below! Follow @dissectpodcast on⁠ Instagram⁠,⁠ TikTok⁠, and⁠ Twitter⁠. Hosts: Cole Cuchna & Charles Holmes Producer: Justin Sayles  Editor: Kevin Pooler Engineer: Sarah Reddy Theme Music: Birocratic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome everyone to Last Song Standing. I'm Cole Kushna. And I'm Charles Holmes, and today we're back with our fifth season. The artist may change, but our task stays the same. On this show, Cole and I argue our way through an artist's entire catalog in order to crown their single Greatest Song of All Time, aka the Last Song Standing. In past seasons, we've covered Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, Outcast, and most recently, we switched things up and debated the best album of the 21st century so far, ultimately crowning the greatest,

project of the last 25 years. But today, the L-Double S boys begin a new journey, a journey, into the discography of one of the most talented, and at times controversial artists of the modern era, Tyler the Creator. Cole, bro, it's been so long in person. How have you been? Beautiful, Charles. It's always good to see you fresh fit on. Come on.

You always got the fresh fade. I had to. You don't even want to know how much the rising gas prices of the economy has affected the haircut. The fade in L.A. It's bonkers, but I do have news for you. Oh, okay. I don't know if you've noticed. I'm a little bit more zen.

Guess what I've been dabbling into. Some transcendental meditation. Shut up. I kid you not, bro. I'm doing 20 minutes every day. I'm trying to get it up. to two times a day. Dude, that's beautiful.

It's inspiring. I was reading David Lynch's book on it, you know, watching some YouTube videos really getting in there, bro. Do you do it with music or just silence? I sit in silence. I have a little keyword that kind of like helps me, like not connected to anything, but kind of like hone in, let my mind roam and just like kind of get into the unified field of the existence, bro.

Can you share the keyword or is that private? That is, that's private. It's not that important, but I was just like, I've, I've singled out on one. A lot of people are like, you should go to a transcendental center. And once I have time to do that, I will. Yeah. But I'm feeling good, bro. My mind is expanding.

You only look great. Thank you. I'm very excited to start this journey. Would you say Tyler, the creator's music puts you in a transcendental meditative state? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely not. Like, I was like, there were times when I was about to meditate. and I had been listening to Tyler and I had to shut it.

I had to put on some like Fiona Apple. Like I really just had to be like, especially the early albums we're talking about, very aggressive. And I'm like, this is not putting me in a great. All right. Well, Tyler the creator.

Our journey begins here. Yep. Curious. What is your relationship to Tyler the creator's music? Complicated. Okay. We are around the same age. And I would say,

Tyler is one of those artists where I was there from the beginning in a similar way that, like I was there for Kanye West or a Childish Scanbino or any of these other artists that have defined the 21st century. I remember being there for Tyler. I remember Bastard. I remember the stuff that happened before Bastard. I remember them. Odd future.

Haji beats all of them going to the Jimmy Fallon show, the free Earl shit. And I think my, I think my relationship with Tyler has changed as I've gotten older and as he's gotten older. But you're obviously a Tyler fan, odd future fan, you've done seasons on Tyler, Frank Ocean. But I have the feeling you went back. Yeah. So this is, I've talked about this many times on the show, but this is when my black hole started. Exactly when Tyler was popping off is when I went to college for classical music and just obsessed over classical music and kind of shut off the rest of. of the world out of survival because I would have dropped out if I didn't do that. So I have gone

back to the early work. I experienced Tyler in real time starting with Cherry Bomb Flower Boy era. Oh shit. Okay. So yeah, I missed the early stuff aside from like a yonkers, which of course was just unavoidable. But I didn't put on a full Tyler album until the black hole ended around Cherrybaum. So going back to the old stuff, having not experienced it, which we're going to talk a lot about today. It's interesting in so many ways. And also I was, I think I would have been too old. I know like for sure if I were in high school when Tyler came out, I would have been absolutely obsessed. So I was in high school and I was not obsessed. I was like, what the fuck is this? But I want to ask why Tyler? Because we had debated what artists to like hone in on this season

and Tyler had kind of been an artist that had been on the bubble for us for a couple seasons now. We're like, is it time? Is it time? Is it time? And then I think it got to the point. We're like, it's definitely time. Yeah, because post-chromachopia, I think is, to me, chromocopia musically, artistically is kind of peak Tyler, whether it's your favor or not, whatever. But I think the latter half of this career, as we've now experienced it from, I would say, Flower Boy on. You can kind of make the case, Cherubon might be in there a little bit. We've had enough of this, for lack of a better term, like new Tyler, the evolved Tyler, to where we can now equally balance the two sides of his career. And I think for me, what's so interesting

about his career is that he is, we've essentially grown up with him. You know, I think it was Earl Sweatshirt that said, like, Odd Future got famous off the rough drafts, and meaning that they're the first things they ever created, we get to hear. And so with Tyler, especially because he's dropped so consistently, essentially up until recently, every two years we've gotten a new Tyler, the creator project. His growth has been incremental. It's not like he went away for five years and then came back with a new sound and a matured, evolved style. No, we can actually track it every two years over the course of these albums. So I think for a show like this is going to be incredibly interesting, especially because we're going to go in chronological order.

Is this the first time? This is the first time ever we're doing a chronicist. chronological order season. And I think we did that because, to your point, because the growth is so incremental, it makes sense to pair albums like Bastard and Goblin together. Because almost in the same way that Earl Sweatshirt is saying we got famous off our rough drafts, you can hear in certain songs off these albums the ideas that would be important to Tyler. and slowly over the career, it's him shedding the things that no longer serve him

and almost just like sharpening the knife. And they're like, I think there's songs that we pick on each of these albums, a lot of it we're going to pick because not only were they the best songs and best ideas, but they pointed towards where Tyler would end up going. And that's what's, we'll talk about a lot this season. That's what's fascinating about him though,

specifically as an artist. We're going to listen to a lot of the early stuff today on this episode. Tyler's vision has not changed. You put on Chromacope songs off of Chromacopia, and you can create, it's a direct through line back to Baster in terms of like instrumentation, chord progressions,

like obviously unrefined on Bastard, but the vision has been there from day one. It was almost like he had to catch up to his own vision. He had to sharpen his sword to use your metaphor to make the songs that were in his head, but the vision has stayed the same. Same with this clothing, you know, like the way he was dressing back then in terms of like color, you know, he's gotten more refined, but like in terms of his color palettes, all of that stuff was like pretty well established from day one. It was just him getting more and more developed and evolved as an artist to actually like fulfill what was I imagine in his head since he was a teenager.

Even the narrative of talking about his father and sexuality and alienation and you realize like, oh, I think the best artist is. whether you're a director or a screenwriter or a rapper or a singer have a couple thematic ideas that they keep returning to. And the more that you listen or view their work, it shows itself. And you do not have to look far with Tyler. You're just like the way he's talking about his father on bastard versus something like chromocopia is different. But those feelings are still there.

Right. Which I think is just like that is the mark of a good art. and to bring us back to the original question, why you do a whole season on Tyler the creator. Yeah. We shall shout out Justin. Justin, producer Justin's in the house. As the resident old head goal, even though we're roughly the same age, I still get to

take that mantle as someone who did experience Tyler in real time. I can tell you that a lot of my old head friends were fucking scared of this guy. Oh, really? At the time, yeah. Scared. Why? Got this young kid coming up. I don't know.

Kill people purchase you. You mean like literally scared? No, not like backroom's obsession scared, right? No, but they were, they found him to be a threat to like what was like real hip hop, which is so funny considering where he ended up. But I think we're going to like charge that trajectory over the course of the next handful of episodes. Are you a fan of Tyler personally? I am, I am.

Were you a fan like odd future days or later? For our future, I was a big Earl head, right? And I think that's like the old heads were like, Earl, this kid can rap. Tyler had a lot of star potential right away. So I was very, I was very open to Tyler. I was very Tyler curious. But it took me a little bit to like fully come around on like, this guy's really got something. Yeah.

Tyler was definitely the biggest star. but I think artistically, Earl and Frank were more fully formed. And that's also what I find interesting. Tyler is a master at having a vision. And even when necessarily his voice, in terms of what he wants to do with it melodically or lyrically isn't getting there, he had something that a lot of other members of odd future didn't, which is like I can basically take my vision and imprint it on the world. And even if you don't like it, it is so stark and so in your face, you're going to have to contend with it.

And that's why I think we're talking about any of these artists, because it does take that type of singular vision from a leader to be like, hey, yo, everybody, come on. If you follow me, I'll at least knock down the door. Right. But before we get to that, do you want to remind all of our listeners about, you know, the premise, the rules of last song standing? All right. So remember the goal of this show is to determine Tyler the creator's greatest song of all time. each episode will focus on a single album, some exceptions today. Well, we'll nominate the standout tracks.

We think are in contention for Tyler's best off of that project. At the end of the episode, we each must crown a last song standing, the one song we think deserves to advance. Those album champions move on to our season finale. While they'll face off in a last song standing while I'll rumble until Charles and I are forced to agree on a single winner, the greatest tire of the creator song ever made. But today, we're adding a little bit of a twist.

Instead of us breaking down one album, we're breaking down two. So we're going to start with 2009's Bastard, which was Tyler's debut. Then we're going to move on to 2011's Goblin. All right. So we're going to talk to be perfect, you sloppy, how to get psychie. Jesus called. He said he's sick of the dinsers. I told him to quit.

You at my school, departed in my house. Ended at your panties. Love. She is who I'm thinking of when I am beating Richard up. All right. So we're going to talk about Bastard first. But before we get there, I did want to kind of walk us through Tyler's background because I was able to dig up a lot of his early MySpace music, which I think, I don't know how many fans of this show have gone to the YouTube depths of either YouTube or like SoundCloud or even like there's some like ZShare links still floating out there. So I was able to dig up a lot of stuff.

So I think it would be interesting for people to hear some of that early stuff. So here's a little 60-second bio on Tyler, born in 1991 in Hawthorne, California, raised by his mother and grandmother. Sounds like he moved around a lot, switched schools a lot. Fun fact, he did live in Sacramento, my hometown for a brief stint, and went to my same high school. Really? Shot out Elkrove High School, small suburb outside of Sacramento. I was already graduated by the time he was there, and I think he only went there for a couple months before he moved back down to L.A. but I can see a little bit of Sacramento and Tyler and in you.

So, oh, hell yeah. I don't know what that means. Let's move on. So he discovers skateboarding and music around the same time, 12, 13, and he begins teaching himself how to play piano, inspired by a Feral, early NERD 2003 DVD. So he sees Feral playing piano, singing along, 20 minutes into this DVD,

have you seen the actual footage that inspired Tyler to play the piano? At one point, but so long ago. We'll play it here for the listeners. That's a song called The Action. It's like a skater. It's just Farrell on a piano.

So nothing special. But I think it is kind of cool just like have the genesis of like Tyler on film documented, which Farrell obviously we know is like one of his biggest influences. So I was able to dig up his earliest surviving beat. So this is a beat from 2005.

I think this is all internet. So hopefully the facts are straight. But he would have been 14 or 15 years old. It's called Miami Apartment, or at least that's the name it's been given. I'm not sure Tyler said title did that or not. But I want to play for you in real time this first ever surviving Tyler the Creator beat. It's not bad. it is

it is not bad but this has to be around the time for all made in my mind yeah the drums on that are

this is straight like like him like a 14 15 year old Tyler just doing like in my mind BBC

era feral type shit but what I love is like again drums maybe maybe not

what we usually expect from Tyler, but that chord for sure, seventh chord on a synth is so Tyler. That never, that literally never goes away in his entire career up till this day. Beautiful jazz inspired chords on

synthesizers is so so Tyler and we hear it here first all the way when he was 14, which I think is super interesting. Okay, so then 2007, 2008, he's 16, 17. This is when he starts his MySpace, his blog spots,

and he starts to build on future. So I did find one of his earliest albums. It's an EP called Stereotype by Ace the Creator. For those that don't know, Ace the Creator was his original name before Tire the Creator. Have you heard any of this? No, actually, I haven't heard this. Okay, so this is the first track called I Dream.

Stereotype. Like I eat shoes, I rock ice cream steaks. Cause it looking like a wall fashion week. Baby NAPE's, I'm a supreme freak. Fox Cells, my eyes, nigga babes. I'm 15 block sheets I'll talk to me if you had wearing shit from swap meets

fuck all you hundreds is wearing like this is not bad this is very like once again it's so funny because

Tyler would go on to make so much fun of that type of song this reminds me very much of like Lil B L.A. just like not jerk or snap

but just like a very like oh I'm talking about my supreme logo hoodies and all it's just so funny that i'm like oh he would go on to improve on that but he would go on to make fun of that type of rap okay that was i think he was yeah 16 or so when he made that one this was going to be a tribute question but i'm just going to give it to you now there was so i don't know if it was like his producer name or what but he also had a alias called polymono have you heard of this at all no Oh, this is one I have not heard.

Okay, so Polly slash Mono, I think, was either another character or alias or it was his producer name because he released this project called Pink Gold Square pixels. And it's all instrumental work. And we'll play first track off Pink Gold Square right here. Okay. I'm fucking with this. You can start to get the darker. Okay. So where we had like pretty core progressions on those first two tracks, now we're starting to get the dark, my mind.

What it would be? You could hear some like Odd Future ramped up vocals to this. Yes. So, okay. So also in 2008, he is assembling the members of Odd Future. So original members, Casey Veggies, Hodgy, Left Brain, Matt Martians, Taco Sid and Jasper. They all start making music in SIDS and Taco's house called The Trap. Tyler has fond memories of this time, just like working on.

bastard working on all these early odd future mixtapes. I think like the first official odd future release I might have this wrong but June 2008 is when him and Jasper release I Smell Panties an EP which is like essentially a comedy

album I'm not sure if you've ever listened to this but it's just them kind of like fucking around we'll play a little bit of it for the listeners here I'm with your bitch she's on my dick she like my nuts and ask me if I give a fuck no I don't But just a few months after that, they release, uh, in November the odd future mixtape. Now bring the ruler out like Rick the ruler, paid and fool.

I'm cooler than you cooler. Got these holes. Now where's my garden tool? Fuck them all. All them fuck with the future. I back with thrash hard backyard beach. Listen to that. So all those characters I just listed are on there.

It has odd toddlers. was we'll show up on Bastard, but this is like, you know, the rough drafts to use Earl's term, odd future mixtape. You said you kind of remembered this a little bit. I must have went back after like Bastard or a little bit before and listened to this. And I was not impressed at all. But once again, rough drafts. Yeah, exactly.

They did get their first type trap blurb off of this mixtape. And like, you know, they're not quite getting like the underground following that they would have after Bastard. but you can start to see the pieces come together with all these like blog spot releases that Tyler is putting out all these random things, starting to coalesce into something, right? 2009, that's when Earl Sweacher and Domogenesis join Odd Future. And this is when Tyler is really setting work on what would become Bastard. Again, they're all recording at the trap studio working on their debut mixtapes. And then all culminating with Bastard released on December 25th, 2009.

on ZShare and Tyler said in retrospect that 46 people downloaded it of what it came out so the title that we know now is like we're starting to see it crystallize and I think everyone had to go back to Bastard but we can kind of get

into to Bastard proper now I'm wondering were you, did you hear about Tyler like Goblin Yonkers on or were you on these some of these early stuff? No I listen to to Bastard first. Oh okay Because I think what was interesting, and it speaks to kind of like the contradiction that's inherent, not only in Tyler, but in our future, is that around this time, Tyler is one year older than me.

So there were, to me, there were like two sections of music consumption. The bottom fell out of the mainstream of labels. Streaming had not taken off yet. CD sales were dipping. So on one side, everybody wanted to be on a fader magazine. Everybody wanted to get reviewed by Pitchfork. But both of those publications highly white. Everybody working at there was a very gated community. So even though they were the tastemakers and they would be reviewing rap, like if you were a kid like me, just like you would click on this.

There's a white person. And then you had something else boiling up, which was the blogs, something that Tyler, obviously wanted to be a part of. We're talking about not right, two dope boys, fake store drive, like the list goes on and on. But that to me was, even though

all of those creators of those blogs weren't black, that was actually the real incubation where everyone from like Walet, a kid cutty to Wisconsin, currency, I remember going checking not right, two dope boys, all of these blogs every single day,

multiple times a day, and downloading a anything that they told me was hot. And when I talk about the contradiction of Tyler and odd future, I think the reason that he railed against these blogs for not posting him so much is because while he wanted and he ultimately got the tastemaker stamp of a fader or a pitchfork, that's a white audience. Which really wanted was the like, the two dope boys, the nah writes, the comment sections to be like, yo, this is the hottest rapper ever. And very, very quickly, Tyler would leap over the Charles Hamilton's of the world and all of these other people that were those blog darlings.

But I do think that, like, in his music, a lot of what he is grappling with is like, why won't these people accept me? Why don't they think I'm hot? Like, it was both a punchline, but I do think that there is a truth to it of just like, Being a teenager being like, why don't these 30-year-old fucking hip-hop heads who are running these blogs want to post my fucking music, it's better than all of the other whack shit that they're posted. Yo, yo, fuck two dope boys and fuck not right than any other fuck niggas blog that can put a 18-year-old nigga making his own fucking beats, covers videos and all that shit. Fuck you post-drank ass cliche jerking, LA sloths and rapping fuck niggas hype beast niggas. I remember listening to like a bastard and not getting it, where I could tell that there was talent there, but because I was his same age, I think there was also a level of like, he's rapping about stuff that's not as cinematic to me at that time, which is I, like, he's rubbing about like not having a dad and not getting posted on blogs.

Like, Jayzey's rapping about selling drugs. One of them is very cinematic. One of them is just like, yeah, you're, like, you're rapping about shit that like 14 and 15 year olds were you about. To be fair, he's writing this from, these are songs on Bastard. These are songs 15, 16, 17 years old. Yes. So it's like, what else is he going to talk about, really? Okay.

So I always try to lay out the concepts of each album before we dig in. So this is, Bastard is the first in the, what is now known as the Wolf trilogy. This is three concept albums all under the same kind of thematic umbrella. Tyler's sitting with this therapist, Dr. T.C., which spoiler alert is Tyler's conscience that Twist ending will talk about on Goblin, where that's revealed. But essentially frames the album, frames these songs as therapy sessions, where he does begin talking about growing up without a father. The home ends with him.

Maybe we're kind of led to believe that it's a suicide attempt at the end of the album. I don't want to try to oversell the concept, but I do think there's something interesting. One about Tyler from day one being a conceptual artist. Again, something that will never leave in his entire discography. Every album is a concept. Every album comes with a character. You know, a different costume, a different look, a different aesthetic.

and usually has some kind of storyline. And so we see him, even from a very early age, having a vision, being a conceptual artist. And not only that, I mean, even like in the very opening moments, Dr. T.C. says this is going to be the first of three sessions. Well, Tyler, hi. I'm Dr. T.C. And I'm guessing that your teacher sent you here to talk because you were misbehaving. It's going to be three sessions today, tomorrow, and then the end of the day. meaning the first three albums, you know, of this Wolf trilogy. So it's like already 17, 18 years old, he's thinking not only about this one project,

but about the next three projects. It's like a very Kanye-esque in terms of like the college dropout trilogy where he's already thinking about not just a college dropout, it's going to be late registration, then it's going to be graduation, then it's going to be good-ass job. Like he's thinking like miles ahead, right? So I think that's pretty interesting. I think there's also something conceptually interesting about like this troubled kid without a father. We go on to hear him talk about rape fantasies, violence, like all this kind of fucked up shit.

But it is framed under this umbrella of characters and this concept of a troubled kid who is in, we'll find out in Goblin and a sane asylum. It's obviously very adolescent in its conception and its concept, but I don't know. Is it as interesting as I'm trying to make it, or do you think it's just kind of like a... No, no, no, revisiting the album, what I notice even in the title of like, bastard goblin wolf. And in the lyrics is that to me, this is like in cell music before, like, we really contended with what in cells were. And I don't mean that in like a pejorative way of like, oh, wagging my finger at Tyler. I do, you do in his lyrics, you're hearing a young black man

contend with what it means to like not be a sex symbol. And Tyler, like, once you get money, everybody's attractive. Tyler's not an ugly man, but I do, when you're like listening to that, there's so much of him rapping about either not being wanted or sex that he's not having or the sex turning into rape. and he's talking about, he's wagging his finger at everything that like bling and rappers and this, but also really,

really wanting to be a part of that world. It's so fascinating to me that so much of these early projects are of this like young teenager trying to come to grips with like, but I don't have the voice of a Farrell. I don't have this thing that's easily sellable. and he's both like happy about it, but there's also just this like little part of him that's just like,

fuck am I like, will I ever be accepted? And that's why I think even when narratively, the story does not always go here, the T.C. The like talking to this therapist, the twist ending are always kind of like hodgepodge.

If you really listen to the lyrics, I'm like, oh, okay, this is a kid working through something in real time and of course millions of people would go on to fall in love with this because I do think

this was something that is part of the teen experience since the dawn of time but I think Tyler was talking about something that was happening at like what we would go go on to know

is like peak internet what it was just like you would see it was stuff like because the internet and everything that like would come before and after I think at this time, the internet seemed like a net positive in the world. It felt like, oh, Twitter is

important. Oh, my gosh, Tumblr is important. Look at all of the aesthetics and these jokes and everything that we're building. But under that current, I think there was a little bit of loneliness that would explode into like a national crisis. The crisis of like loneliness and being dejected. And that's why I loved returning to these albums because I'm like, oh, this is ground zero for a bunch of stuff that we wouldn't really be able to understand until like years and years later. Yeah. I mean, they also, I mean, it's clear Tyler wants attention. Yes. I think a lot of the kind of horror core elements of the early stuff is like a kid looking for attention. What's the fastest way to get attention? Provoke people. Shock people. You know what I mean? So I think there's some

of that in there. I mean, there's also like, I mean, I remember when I was a kid or not a kid, when I was like, when I first got into writing, like there's a period in my life where I wanted to be a writer, fiction writer. And the first stuff that I ever wrote was like horror stuff, which I'm not even into like horror books or movies. Yeah. But there was a freedom in my adolescent mind where I could like write the most fucked up shit.

And no one could stop, like I could. Like I could stop me from doing it. Yeah. There was like some kind of power in it. I mean, I didn't ever put that stuff out publicly. And,

um, but I, I have some kind of connection with that. that intuition when you're experimenting creatively as a youth, you're looking to provoke. You have not a check. I mean, this background's not like perfect, you know, so you have some of that. And there's a lot of teenage angst. There's a lot of just him being a naturally rebellious kid, being a like a clear leader

from day one, wanting to be like anti-establishment. But at the same time, you listen to some of the early interviews, like post bastard in Goblin where he's like, fuck the underground shit. I want Grammys. I want MTV awards. Like he, he wants to be big, you know,

he wants attention. So yeah, there's a lot of that tension on the album, you know, where it's like on one hand, he does want acceptance. On the other hand,

he wants to be independent. He wants to be himself. I mean, I would even say for like, people were like, labeling him hardcore or obviously there are those elements in there. But you think of like an Eminem

or an insane clown posse or even movies. Like, Jordan and Peel's get out had not been release yet. And the reason I bring up something like that is when we think of horror, when you think of the biggest horror directors or actors, they're usually white. So I do think that there was this allure, especially from the people writing about Tyler, the white music journalists or bloggers, where it was like, oh my gosh, black kids feel this way? They're into this shit? Like, I do think that there was a lot of, like, it's one thing.

when like Eminem does it, I think it's different when like eight black kids from LA do it. There's this like, well, what's going on? And I think Tyler was smart enough at that age to realize that where we were still in a, what I, like, and we'll talk about it later with a song like Smuckers off Cherry Bomb with Lil Wayne and Kanye. Right at this time in hip hop, we had already gotten the first generation of rappers who at, had either grown up in the suburbs or their main subject matter was not necessarily about being embedded in the streets, crime, drug. Like, of course, you had a tribe called Quest or like all of these other artists. But I think that very, very quickly, like in the 2000s, you're like, oh, Kanye's popping up. And we have Lil Wayne, all of these artists that Tyler would, like Farrell, that Tyler was

seeing. And now in the second generation of that, the second wave when it was like, Waleigh, and Kid Cuddy, and Whiskleaf and all this, Tyler's the end of that second wave where it's like, no, no, no, this is an actual kid while he didn't grow up rich and he didn't, but he didn't grow up in abject poverty. And he loves skateboarding and he loves Supreme and he loves horror movies and he's going to rap about Jeffrey Dahmer. Like everything I'm saying now they're like, people like, well, duh. And I'm like, no, no, back then that was like, what is happening? Yeah, or he like, you know, he's pretty adamant about like rock music, like slip knot, good Charlotte, the hives. These are all people you said and were influences. And then you pair that with his love of like Neo Soul or like Soul Quarian movement. Eric Badu and all like. And here's a thing. Black people were always into this shit. They were always into it. I just don't think that we had the means all the time to wear those influences on our sleeves and for people to understand it. And with. and all of these artists at that time, oh, I don't need permission.

I don't need to ask your magazine to get an interview. I can go to Tumblr. I can go to Twitter. You are going to see in real time by what I'm reposting or what I'm talking about, this is what I love. And that also, if we're being real, is what ends up getting Tyler in trouble,

what ends up getting him banned from this country or that country or for people finger wagging because I do think it's one thing when you have a troubled white punk rock star saying all this shit having a black having black kids go to New York like kill people birth shit fuck school on stage right I remember it

I was just like even if I didn't like the music at the time I'm like hey no fuck y'all let them all right all right should we move on to my favorite part of the show yes album trivia So this is a tradition on this show, the first episode of each season. We have a segment on album trivia.

We're going to quiz each other on Tyler the Creator Facts here in a second. But we need a name for this season's trivia portion. And I asked you, you always give us a few options to choose from. And then we'll select the name of the trivia section. So how do you have? Let's see. These are going to come quick and fast. So we're off the dome.

Quiz me if you got lost. Okay, okay. Quiz people burn shit fuck school. Okay. Justin, if you have any, throw them out. Those are the two that came, that came to me the quickest. Okay. Are there any others?

Don't tap the ask. That's pretty good. Quiz magic wand. My favorite so far is the first one. Yeah. Quiz me if you get. If You Get Lost? I think that works.

Let's do Quiz Me if You Get Lost. Okay. So Quiz Me If You Get Lost is where Charles and I try to stump each other with little known facts about the album. So in this case, we're actually going to combine this. We're going to do Bastard and Goblin. Essentially, anything from Tyler early age to Goblin era Tyler is on the table. Whoever gets the most questions correct will get first pick in the last long standing segment at the end of the episode. Also, we're going to keep a season long tally of correct answers.

whoever has the most amount of correct answers at the end of the season will get a mystery prize from Justin. Hell yeah. Justin does not have it picked out yet, I don't think. I got riff-raff on speed dial in case we need to get more cameos. And Jimmer Ferdat? Jimmer is got, you know, he's probably off playing basketball and shine on something that I'm not aware of right now. But riff-raff is available. Okay.

So last year, Justin got us cameos from Riff Raff. Honestly, riffraff is, riffraff is making a comeback musically. I heard him rapping over a Seven Nation Army. Oh, really? A couple months ago, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's doing things. He popped up on your timeline. Okay.

Okay, so I'll go first. I have like seven potential questions. God damn. I went deep with this one. Question number one. Tyler wrote his first rap when he was seven years old. What song did he write his rap to? You know, you have to know the song.

Give me the artist. definitely has to be like a Farrell beat. Not a Farrell beat. Not a Farrell beat. I think not bigger than Farrell, but he is definitely on record as loving this particular group. I'll give you a hint there. And a little bit more mainstream. I don't know. All right.

So it was the second half of positivity by the black eyes, black eyed peas. Fuck, I did know he was into the black eyed peas. But every single time I would read it in interviews, I'd be like, there's no way. we'll play the beat for people here that's pretty cool oh yeah all right so all right

this is a softball okay before odd future was a musical group what was the original concept for odd future

from Tyler's point of view like Tyler's yeah before it was like a musical group originally with the name odd future what did he want to do with it I remember reading this actually It wasn't closed, was it?

It wasn't close. Yeah, it was, I don't know. I forgot. All right. So he said in an interview with respect, it was supposed to be a magazine at first. Okay. In my sophomore year, but what 15 year old do you know from a single parent was going to make enough funds with no job to really do a magazine? So basically he was going to have like left brain, haji, take photos.

He was going to make all like fake ads and shit like that. Cool. So I was just like, even from that early age, it's funny that like, it's like, yeah, I'll make a magazine, which is also like, that's like the last generation who's just like, you know what? I want to make magazines as someone who worked at a magazine. Okay. So we're both over here. Okay. Let me give you a easier one.

Okay, you should maybe, maybe know this. So this is jumping ahead to Goblin era. She featuring Frank Ocean was originally produced with another artist in mind, but Tyler had no way of getting. the beat to him. Who was this artist? Justin Bieber? No. No. I'll give you one more guess. Rapper. A rapper? Fuck. Legend. Wayne? No, Snoop. Snoop. Snoop? Yeah. Snoop on what? On she? No. Wait, actually? I mean, it has some of the Ferelli, like, you know, I could see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, actually now that I'm thinking, I could see Snoop on this. Yeah, yeah. Fuck yeah. Okay. All right, we've already talked about the blog era. This to me,

is a softball. Early in Tyler's career, he antagonized many music blogs for not posting his music, but especially two dope boys. Can you name the founders of the popular blog? I don't know.

I shouldn't know, but I don't know. Mech and Shake. Is that, is that a fair question? I mean, Justin. Yeah. Because Mech and Shake did, did respond to Tyler where they were just like, A,

he never sent us his music. B, Because he cares so much. Which is, I also think it was a supreme branding decision from Tyler to say like fuck the blogs. Right. Because at some point, I'm like, he doesn't actually care that much anymore. But it is like a good thing because so many, it's like at this point someone saying like, back then being like fuck pitchfork.

You know how many people were like fuck pitchfork? Right. It's just like you're. Yeah. All right. Damn. We're both. All right.

Give me your last one. Your last one. Well, you have seven. Okay. What was the name of the first beat Tyler made on a cracked version of Fruity Loops? 2004. This one's kind of hard. I don't fucking know this.

What? It's called reverse. How was I supposed to get that? How about this? How about this? How about this? Yonkers was nominated for MTV Video of the Year. He did win best artists that same year.

But in the MTV Video of the Year, he lost to what, either song or artist. You can give me whatever. Fault Katie Perry fireworks dog these questions How do I know MTV I worked at MTV

And I would not know that I wasn't watching this shit All right All right So we're Next next episode Softball Okay

Yeah okay Tyler said on Instagram That new magic wand Is a perfected version of what early song In his discography How are these softballs

You keep saying You make me look bad This is a softball That's a softball You should New Magic Wand is one of your favorites? I know, but I've, I mean, I definitely have read this at some point, but like that retaining in my, in my brain. Let me see.

Is a ref. Do you know what album? Is it on this album? Bastard. Oh, it's on Bastard. And it's not the one. I was like, what? I was like, Tyler, what the fuck you're talking about?

Would it be shit? I don't know. Pigs fly? It's French featuring Haji. Oh, okay. Which I'm like. I can see that actually. You can see it?

Production-wise, yeah, I can see it. All right. Damn, we, neither of us. I was like, I'm an ace these. All right. Okay, so zero for three, both of us, after a great start. This is rough, guys.

Well, it's because we, like, early on and last long standing, we would give each other, like, actual softballs and we would get a lot of them right. So I think at this point in our relationship, we're always like, fuck that. He's not going to know this. Here's the thing, because you've done seasons on Tyler and because I grew up on Tyler, I was like, let me look up questions that I don't, because there were so many facts where I'm

like, he's going to get this. He's going to get this. He's going to get this. Let me try to like dig a little. All right. All right. Zero on the board. That's okay.

Well, let's move into song nominations. You ready for this? Yeah. Let's do it. All right. So remember the goal of each season of last song standing is for Charles and I to determine the single best song by Tyler the Creator. The songs we select over the course of the season will then duke it out in the season finale. We'll be forced to agree on the last song standing.

The single best song by Tyler the Creator. Right now we are nominating two songs from Bastard that we think should be in contention for Tyler's best. Do you want to go first? I'll go first because I already brought the song up. I'm nominating French. Okay. Featuring Haji Beets. I'm gonna do my best Tyler.

Got all the black bitch is bad because my main bitch vanilla. When I heard that. That's pretty good. When I heard that as a kid, I was just like, damn, this thing is going on. The beat is phenomenal. When we were talking earlier about Tyler having a few key ideas that he like consistently goes back to, French to me is a perfect example of like, this kid can make bangers. He knows how to, whether it's the first line of the bar, whether it's the chorus to just grab your attention. It does remind me of a very punk rock ethos.

You little niggas, bad at you, my friend. It was just, it's so raw. And I do think that on Bastard, maybe the engineering and the mixing is a little all over the place or some of the raps or the drums. My biggest thing with a lot of these songs that the drums aren't there. They're not hitting the way that I know he probably wanted them to hit. they do work live like French live amazing like sandwiches live amazing because you're getting the live energy

the drum the mixing is not as important radicals is a perfect example of like radicals live was almost burning down places and then when you listen to radicals on the album you're like you want to know it reminds me of it was Connie had this quote around the time of graduation where he was realizing that a lot of

of his music could not be played in stadiums. And I think Tyler had this weird problem where he could make music that sounded so good live because it's him and his friends jumping around, crowd surfing, just all this shit. And then when you would listen to the actual record, just like, he's not capturing it. And I think French is one of those records where he gets closest to capturing the chaos of what made early odd future just so, so electric. And my first hot take of the season. I won't say for the whole course of his career, but I think honestly, the artist that Tyler had the most chemistry with was actually Haji Beats. To me, Haji Beets is like the Lloyd Banks of Odd Future, where I'm going to talk about him later

in the episode as well, but I don't actually think Tyler had as much chemistry with Frank Ocean as you think, where they work together quite a bit early on, but there's always something where it's like either a lot of times it was more so Frank having to come into Tyler's world, where it's like, haji beats is just like the stoner best friend who's not trying to like out rap Tyler,

like when Earl's on a, on a beat with Tyler, you can tell which one of these is like the star and which one of these is the better rapper. Like Earl is such a better rapper than Tyler. And I'm just like with Hajie,

it's a little bit more equal. Yeah. And I just think French is just such a fun fucking song. I remember being in high school and just thinking, I was like, I got it. to give it up.

Incredible. Amazing opening line. I'm glad to, I'm glad you called that out. Then following it with, she's trying to get a groove back like Stella because in that. Grab the umbrella. Because in that movie,

I didn't know. You know, my shit on Helen Keller. Okay, that line too. When it comes to your perception of my shit, I'm Helen Keller. I love that. But groove back like cella,

I had to look this up. But like in that movie, Stella's husband leaves her for a white woman. So there's some wordplay with the opening line. Grab the umbrella. I don't know. Do you know what that means? I read it on Genius that on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, there's a character named Stella and there's a yellow umbrella that's important to. I don't know if that's the reference. I highly doubt Tyler was how I met your mother fan was I was a how you met your mother fan at this time. But Tyler, I'm not sure. But I also think that this is like, I might have brought this up already. But I think what is so funny about like Tyler, I think. What is so funny about like Tyler, I think. this time. And it's so interesting about music made by teenagers is a lot of times teenagers are like singing or rapping about shit that they just have not done. And I think throughout

this trilogy from Bastard, Goblin, and Wolf, Tyler is like, and on a lot of tracks, is either rapping about sex that he's not having, drugs that he does not do, acts whether it is a soul to rape all this stuff where it's like, to your point earlier, it's to provoke. Right. And I think that why Tyler was such a lightning rod at that point was that a lot of older, because when you go back to like old village voice pieces or this or that, it's like, oh my gosh, these kids, I can't believe they're espousing this. Or is it going to be another Columbine?

Oh my God, they're so homophobic. And the funny thing that happened, like Sid said this. in an interview Sid the kid who was their engineer and DJ early on where she was a lesbian and she's just like I kept having to answer all these questions

about how I feel about these boys dropping the F bomb and being homophobic and now half of them are queer and it's just like that is what's like so interesting about listening to these songs is you're just like oh like maybe like consciously

they don't know that they're working through this stuff but subconsciously it's there because even on a lot of these records Tyler will be like making fun of like rappers for like wearing chains and like having all these fucking cars and talking about all these women I'm just like very soon once he had the money Tyler was flashing he had the chains he had all of it so it's like I find I think that this song is a good example on French of not only everything that made early odd future so infection but it does speak to the contradiction. These teenagers are both, like, mad at, like, modern rap and everything that they don't have. And want it, yes. So let's move on to my first nomination. Might be a basic choice, but I got to go bastard intro. This is what the devil plays before he goes to sleep.

Some food for thought. This food for death. Go ahead and fucking eat. My father's dead. Why, I don't know. We'll never fucking eat. I cut my wrists and play p.m. because I'm so depressed.

If you weren't going to pick it, I was going to pick it. Okay. To me, this is the foundational text. Yeah. Of Tyler the Creator. To me, this is actually one of his most important songs early on because he lays out everything. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, musically, I'll just talk about first, super interesting. For Tyler the Creator's quote unquote, first song, but, you know, ignoring everything that he did before on the MySpace stuff. This is his first official album, first song, and it's a long, no drums, piano-led, nine short-versed vignette. You know, the song structure is super weird, and that it's nine short vignette verses separated by essentially these instrumental, little short instrumental things. Yeah. So just like structurally right off the bat, and it works.

Like, you know, I don't think structurally, I think structure is something he struggled with early on in his career. And that's something you had to learn in the Cherry Bomb Flower Boy era. I mean, shows glimpses of traditional song structure on like Wolf and stuff we'll talk about. But to have such a conceptually kind of off-kiltered song in this title track, and it actually works. Like I think I'm engaged the entire way through, you know, on this song, even though it is just a piano, there is no hook to grab, you know, to anchor the song. It's still, it's like continuous motion from start to end. We already talked about the concept of the album, but this is where he lays out the concept of the first three albums,

is on this one track. You know, and you get a pretty good, he sets the expectation of that pretty clearly, like you know what it is. You know, it's Tyler sitting down talking to this therapist. I think the rhyming itself is kind of clunky at times,

but like one thing I think we take for granted with early Tyler is how fully formed. One, his rapping was like organic, Like hitting pockets of beats from day one was like always there to me. Like the rapping itself never felt feels clunky. Maybe the lyricism, maybe the rhyme structure does. But in terms of his just natural ability to flow on a beat is there from day one. I think Bastard is a great example of that.

I think seven, the second track is a great example of that. Also, I think we take for granted just the sound of Tyler's voice as one of the most distinct voices in hip hop history, this deep, gravelly baritone, which in my mind differs from a lot of deep voices in hip hop in that there's something about it. It's very low, but it like, it still pokes out in the mix, like so definitively where it's like a lot of times with lower voices, it gets kind of buried with the music because the lower resonance kind of sink into the, you know, the lower sections of the song. But his always stays on the top. It's always crystal clear.

I think that has to do with the gravel part of his voice. But it just has a voice alone, I think is one of the most idiosyncratic, just the texture of it. You know what I mean? Which also, I mean, I don't know if you have anything to say about that. But I'm, I was going to say really quick. Yeah. It is so interesting to me that the very thing that you can tell, even in interviews, Tyler is the most self-conscious about, which is his voice.

Yeah. on a song like Bastard is actually what turns them into a star. Yeah. Because to your point, when you think of like a deep voice in rap, you take a Rick Ross, right? Historically, when you think of deep voices in rap, it's all about luxury. You are the Pimp figure. You are usually heavyset. You're the person that's getting all the girls or you're a drug dealer.

It's about aggression. And Tyler has that aggression. But on something like Bastard, he's playing into being a monster. he's playing up almost the cinematic quality of this. Where even when you think of like Eminem, because he loved Eminem, Eminem's voice is not this deep. Eminem is a little bit of it.

He's a trickster. When he's rapping, it's like pitched up, very nasly voice. I think it's so funny to me that like, even when you were playing like the early Myspace raps, Tyler was still trying to rap in a way that would make his voice a little bit more palatable. for the audience and the first

track off bastard is him kind of finally accepting like, I have to actually rap how I talk. And that is what blows him up. But I think I know what you're going to ask. What are the best voices in rap? The best, we got to go top five,

just real quick sidebar, because it definitely got me thinking about what are your favorite, it doesn't have to be the best, but your favorite, just the sound of their voice, not taking lyricism out of it, even flow out of it,

Just the texture of the voice, we're going to ask Justin this too, but I'm curious you're just rattle off the top five for me. In no order, and this might not even be a top five, but just in no order, I would say Biggie easily just has such an interesting voice. Janicus, phenomenal fucking voice. Push a T. cuts through the fucking B every single goddamn time. who at ODB is in there. These aren't even my favorite. These are just like 50 cent to me has an incredible laughing voice. Early. Before it got too gravelly.

Who's too gravely? Well, 50 cents voice got like shot at later in his career. Oh, but. But early, early 50, especially after he gets shot and he has to figure out how to rap again. I don't know what happened to his voice. but just like those like first like

those mixed the mixed date run into like get rich and die trying is just like yeah massive for massive full fucking shit who am I who am I missing let's go to Justin you have a top five it's funny you said ODB I was like there could be five different people

from Bhutan you pick yeah but I got two on mine Method man no one has ever sounded a cooler rap in the yeah yeah um I had biggie on my list too um one thing I thought about a lot was rappers who had been sampled the most, too, because their voice sounds so cool. And Rock Kim. Yeah.

The God, God, MC, Rock Kim, came up in that thinking process. Prodigy from Mob Deep. Oh, hell yeah. Probably has, especially, like, later on in his career as he got a little bit older and more weathered. Like, there's just something about that voice, which actually, like, It kind of sounds a little demonic in the same way that Tyler's does. Like, obviously very different artists, very different stages of their career. But, like, kind of a little bit kinship.

I think this conversation, certain old heads, the same people that I knew that used to be scared of Tyler would lose their minds if this conversation happened and nobody shouted out guru from Gangstar. Okay. It's mostly the voice. I debated Jada kiss on mine, but that's that was my top five. Oh, I forgot because I wasn't doing a top five. I was just rattling off. I think Andre 3000 has actually one of the best voice. Like he'd probably be my number one just in terms of just like not only wasn't he

an amazing rapper, but any single time you hear Andre 3000's voice, it just feels like that time. It just feels like a warm pillow. And then I think future has had one of the most. incredible, whether he's singing, whether he's rapping, whether he's aggressive, melodic, whatever, he has one of the most malleable. So I would also have to put three stacks of future on my list, but who's your, who's in yours? So number one, this is loose order, but I think if I had to choose number one, it's Mace. Oh, Mace.

That dope is always. Wow. Mace is a good. I forgot about Mace. Wow. Wait, I thought, wow in a good way or a bad way. I don't know. I thought about Mace for a minute, too. No, Mace has an incredible, honestly, Connie, most of Kanye's, career early is him just trying to rap like me. I got DMX. I'm surprised. DMX, yes. Meth and Man was on my list, of course. Future is on my list. You know, I'm not like the biggest future fan, but like his voice alone, absolutely amazing with the, you know, the, whatever audio tune effect that he puts on it. This might be the most controversial one,

because I know a lot of people hate his voice, but I love it. It's the Rizza. Very, like, I can see, I can see why people don't like it. I love Riz's voice. His rapping leaves so much to be desired. Riza was on the short list for Wutang. The four names that I was thinking for Wutang were five names. Method Man, Rizza, ODB, Inspector Deck, Ray Kwan. Not ghostface?

And that's the thing. Now I keep going. I'm like, it's going to be ghost face. And I'm like, you guys not my favorite rapper. I'm like, bro, I'm going to give it to, like, I could just. I'm sorry, it might just be everyone besides Masterkiller. Damn, did I not bring up Ross? I think Ross has an amazing voice.

Oh, that's a good one. Rick Ross has an amazing, amazing voice, which I'm like, and he's a, I think I already brought him up where it's like deep voices in rap are so interesting because you can either go the DMX Tyler, the creator route. Right. Or you could go the Biggie and Ross route. And that's what I love about a deep voice of rap where it's like, and Jadikis to me is like somewhere in the middle.

Think about what's in common with, with Ross and Biggie versus Tyler. There's a weight difference. I'll just say that. That gives it a certain quality. Yeah. Okay.

So Bastard, I think we covered Bastard title track enough. No, and I think, um, the last thing I'll say about the title track for Bastard. I thought I would go back to these records. I could not listen to them a lot just because like they're very,

very rough, uh, and depressing. at points. As a high school, I did not give Tyler as much credit as he deserves. And Bassard is a perfect example of him. Like, at that point, this is the movie poster for Tyler the creator. Right. Where it's like, oh, in the same way that when you have Connie West through the wire, and you can kind of understand from the beat to the way he's rapping, to the myth, make equality of it, everything that you need to understand about this artist. I was about to

pick Bastard, but the reason I didn't was because I'm like, oh, he ends up perfecting Bastard. Like, Bastard is like the first movie that you have to go back to watch to understand Tyler creator, but he gets way better at talking about everything on that song with subsequent albums. Right. Okay. So nomination two for you. Nomination two. All right.

I feel like the fans the fans would kill me if I didn't go with this I have to go with ass milk I'm not an asshole I just don't give a fuck a lot The only time I do is when a bitch You're screaming Tyler stop

The big bad wolf to me You're just a mind of fox Red wide this digger's Some of this wolfly out of cock We did niggas you're scared of Like bad dentists Flow is an end them and dirty Like it's plants in it six bitches

I was wondering who was gonna be The person who had to say that word first No, Asbook is the one. This song is fucking incredible. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's so good. It's where, to me,

Tyler and Earl just become undeniable as rappers. I think Tyler was always a very gifted rapper, even if he had clunkers. But to me, what's so funny about it is you can tell it's like two kids that are friends. And you have Earl who is like, technically so gifted, like beyond his age. Like when you hear him, you're just like, who is this kid who has such a mastery

over structure and internal rhyme? Just like the first, this opening line, addicts arise when I arrived. In this crack, crack, blank, back slab in disguise. Alliteration with addicts arise, arrive, all A. Internal rhyme arise and arrive. Next line switches. alliteration to the C in this cracked crack F slur

backslap in disguise. So four internal rhymes on crack, crack, crack back slab brings it back around with disguise to rhyme with the first line. And it just goes on like that. It's like, addicts arise when I arrived in this crack, crack, crack,

back slap in the skies. Fat sack of knives in the past and decide, bitch, reach for the door. The density of rhymes are just from the fucking day one. This kid's like 14 years old doing this. It's insane. It's incredible. And what makes it so funny is that like,

because Tyler can't keep up with that type of like internal rhyme structure, he's just, he's being like almost like the comedian where he's like, well, I'm just going to say the most fucked up nasty shit that's going to make Earl laugh. And then there's this skit in the middle. That's so good. That's so good.

Stop. Why do you do that? Say sorry. Say sorry. I'm sorry as fuck. Say sorry. Sorry as fuck. Say sorry.

It just captures exactly. The exuberance where it's like Tyler is like bullying Earl. And it's just it's so fun. I'm not going to belaborate. Like if you've never gone back to Bastard, go listen to Asmo for the first time or again. And it just brings a smile back to my face because most careers don't end up like this. Where we still get to listen to Earl. We still get to listen to Tyler and see how successful they have come.

But I do think that this, to me, this song also speaks to why they diverge, not only as creators, but as men where to me both of them, it's easy to see why they were friends, but it's also easy to see what about rap, both of them champion. And I think Earl was always someone where the poetry of rap, whether it's because his father's a poet, His mother is an academic, where he's coming from. Earl has always been not only interested in just the art of what it means to rhyme, but the political nature of it, what it means to bend words. So when you listen to everything that would come after it, I'm like, oh, there was no way for this young man to grow under the odd future umbrella because he almost had to shave away some of the schick.

where it's with Tyler, Tyler is like a carnival barker. Like everything that he's doing on Aswick is stuff that he would continue to do. And he starts shaving away stuff as well. But this to me was like, is the perfect synthesis, both of them as artists, which is just

like the carnival barker and then like the supreme joky poet. And it works too. I love what they do with the beat too. Because the beat switches when it's, Earl's turn to rhyme, it has this like more classically hip hop. It's a little warmer. and then when it's,

it passes to Tyler, the synth comes in, and it's like super dark. And like, just the way it flows back and forth. Yeah, it's like, it makes me laugh every time.

That opening sequence that we just kind of dissected with Earl. And then Tyler comes in, I'm not an asshole. I just don't give a fuck a lot. Like the contrast between this beautiful, like poetic, well put together little little vignette.

And then to Tyler just coming in. And but also what's so funny is it, it's, it's hilarious to me at this point that like people were afraid of like odd future because Asmoke to me is a perfect example of classic classic hip hop

which is two friends going back and forth trading rhyme where it's not lost on me we're going to talk about yonkers obviously later that early odd future at their best is always the core of hip hop which is like ciphers, who has the best rhymes, trading rhymes back and forth, who can say the craziest shit, who can make someone laugh? And ass milk to me is that where when I listen to it

now, knowing, taking away all of the, oh my God, all of the slurs, what is this mean? What are they're saying? And just listening to it as a song, I'm like, oh, there's a classic hip-hop song. This is pure unadulterated golden age hip-hop shit. Does it make you guys a little bit sad, though, to hear that interlude in the middle, right? With the part where it breaks off. Yeah, yeah. And it's, like, when I first heard it, like, it brought me a lot of joy, right? The part where Tyler's making, you know, probably pinning down Earl and punching him, making

him say uncle. Because at first, it brought me a lot of joy because it's a reminder that, like, these are just kids. Yeah. These are teenagers just fucking around in the studio. But a couple months later, Earl would get sent off to boarding school. Yeah. And when he came back, like, you know, he didn't put out a record for a little bit. And it was just clear, like, something about him was different.

He's kind of never, it just always felt a little heavier since then, right? And, like, obviously their careers did diverge and they haven't collaborated in anything remotely like this. And it just kind of made me a little sad listening to this a bunch. Like a little bittersweet, right? Like, this is very, like, I'm sounding a little bit like I'm talking about, like, people watch jackass movies now, and instead of, like, focus on all the dumb shit happening, they're like, this is, like, male friendship, right? But I'm kind of getting that energy from this, from these kids, right?

Like, they're just fucking around and they're punching, they're punching each other, and they're trying to say, like, one up each other with, like, what's the best rhyme you can spit? Or what's the most deranged thing you can say? and then it was just kind of all gone. It was just this one fleeting moment. Say sorry. Say sorry. I'm sorry as fuck.

Say sorry. Say sorry. I'm sorry. Don't look at this. Say sorry. Don't look at this. Say sorry. Don't look at this.

Say sorry. Say sorry. I mean, that's a good, like we haven't really talked about the free girl movement, which also added to the myth of early. Yeah, we'll get there when we, when you get to goblin a little bit. Oh, then let's save it. Because I do have a, to answer Justin's question, though, I actually didn't get sad because I realized that so many artists in the odd future machine didn't. A lot of them did, but a lot of them

fell by the wayside. And I also don't think that it's lost on me that Earl's mother, a black woman who's an academic, who can understand a lot of the stuff that they're saying lyrically is not stuff that they're going to want to stand by when they grow old. Right. And I do think that she probably saw in her son where she's just like, you're talented in a way that a lot of these other people that you're, they are talented, but as your mother, I can see that artistically you want to do something else and you're going this other way. So I do agree with you, Justin, that like Earl came back with the heaviness, but he has always in interviews, been very vocal about being like, my mom.

wasn't the villain and like feeling a type of way that like a bunch of teenagers were acting like she was right and I'm just like no I do think that that to me is like kind of like the height of parental love being like I know my kid is is is talented if he gets put in that machine do we get the Earl that we get or does he just decide fuck music I'm never releasing no that's a good point so what's your next nomination so I'm gonna go with seven. Could have been odd toddlers, but something about them using like the MF Doom sample. I'm just like this just sounds like a dube song with Tyler over it. So I'm going to go seven. I'm not going to belaborate because I probably not going to pick this at the end of the episode.

I like seven because it's like, to your point earlier about what I like, when odd features at their best, it's just like that classic hip hop, Cypress feel. And seven to me is like Tyler is wrapping his ass off. It's a 50 plus bar verse. He's rapping for two and a half minutes straight. He's got multiple cadences and flows. The beat is more. It's not the darker stuff. It's like more of a clean like Neptune's inspired beat.

You know, so again, I don't think it's going to get far. I'm going to mostly just shout it out unless you have something else to say and we can move on. I like seven, but to your point, and like we could wrap up on Basterd on, we were talking about it as we were

kind of crafting this season. The, what does it call it the Wolf trilogy? I noticed that all three albums have the same problem, which is like rough drafts have good ideas start really strong and end really weak. Seven is on the strong side.

Seven is a really good song. And I'm like, I always wonder, I'm just like, hmm, would we think of Tyler's early music differently if he had the quality that he has now, which is being able to like prune something? And so you're like, you don't have to like every song on the project. But when I listen to Igor, I'm like, every song belongs on this project. Or what I listen to the best are, like, five songs. There's five songs that kind of follow this structure and the rest of this is like a teenager fucking around. Yeah.

I mean, bastard goblin, pretty rough to listen to you. If you're trying to listen to it from start to finish without a break or a skip, it's pretty hard. I don't know. I mean, maybe there's, I mean, I'm sure there's some people that love it from start to finish. But all these early projects are on the longer side, tracklist wise duration time, you know, all easily over an hour plus. I don't know if I can expect a 17, 18 year old kid to know how to trim an album down. I remember being

that age and creating stuff and it's really hard to let your babies go at that age because everything you make is kind of sick, especially if you're Tyler and you're very gifted and there are elements of each song that he probably really loved, even if the song as a whole fell flat or doesn't work structurally or whatever the problem is. So I can see him kind of just throwing everything on there,

with a bastard, which is like the accumulation of, you know, three years of, you know, it's, it's, essentially he said, I think it was from 16, 17, 18. Yeah. He's pulling from all those, you know, the classic first album thing where you have quote unquote your whole life to write the first album. And I think once maybe a good transition into Goblin, Goblin to me is like him trying to do the same length, you know, a longer album, but only having now two years to write it instead of, you know, your whole life or whatever. And for me, bastard holds up more than Goblin as an album.

I don't know if you feel the same way. The highs on Goblin are higher, but the lows are way lower. And we will talk even maybe about Tyler, Tyler's thoughts now on Goblin, because he's talked about it. Right, right. Yeah.

So why don't we take a quick break? And when we get back, we will get into Goblin. All right, we're back. Time to talk about Goblin. Do you want to give the viewers a little bit of a background on where Tyler was, the album? Yeah, so Post-Baster, we can go through this quickly, but Post-Bastered, obviously, it didn't make a huge splash on release, but throughout 2010, Odd Future is really starting to, you know, get some momentum on underground blogs and kind of message boards and stuff. like we talked about Earl Sweatshirt in March 2010 releases his debut.

We get the mixtape radical on Future in May. They meet the, Tyler meets the Clancy's Christian and Kelly who start managing Tyler and Odd Future. And this kind of leads to them really, I mean, all of 2010 is kind of like gas and what ignites the fire is what I didn't realize is this, all these three events. that I'm about to rattle off, all happen within five days of each other. So February 11th, 2011, Yonkers video premieres.

Yep. I'm a fucking walking paradox. No, I'm not. Three Sims with a fucking triceratops. Rep. Pretty much overnight viral sensation. Within weeks, Kanye's tweeting is the best music video of the year.

It's getting rotation on MTV. I remember this very well. Three days later, at least according to what's on the internet, Tyler signs a one album deal with Excel. Yonkers officially released as a single. Two days after that, so five days after Yonkers video premieres, they're on late night with Jimmy Fallon,

performing not Yonkers, which is kind of surprising. They perform sandwiches. Yep. Which is insane. Also, coincidentally, same day as that performance, Frank Ocean releases nostalgia Ultra,

his debut. And I also remember this is where Tyler jumps on Jimmy Fallon's back, a very, like iconic moment. Well, okay, so what's great about that performance? We'll play clip here.

Insane. The roots are playing the instrumental. So they take that instrumental to another level to our conversation earlier about sandwiches on the record versus live. Oh my God, it's night and day.

Especially with this performance. So it's him and Haji just going crazy. Tyler's got the green ski mask on. He's jumping around at some point. He runs off stage and goes to the guests and shakes the guests up. But this is like the contrast of Tyler. Tyler in a nutshell.

This crazy somewhat spoof, what someone would say chaotic, spooky performance because they got that like lady and the, you remember the lady with the long hair just like on stage going like this, like super creepy? And then they're done performing. And then Tyler takes off the mask and he's all smiles and he jumps on Jimmy Fallon's back.

Jimmy seems a little like intrigued, but scared. He's like, what the fuck is happening? Because it's like chaos. But then it's like, it's just at the end of the day, it's just this goofy kid out of the green ski mask.

I mean, so we get the icon, like two iconic things within five days. And then Tyler's just like, to the moon, to the moon. Like pretty much overnight. Obviously, we know the story that leads up to it. He's already released a full project. But obviously Yonkers is what really sets them off.

Fulfills the star potential that you talked about earlier. Do you remember the Yonkers moment? I remember all of this vividly. And to me, this is a perfect example of like what the music industry actually would become. because around this time, virality was still like novel and new. And it was weird to see something that I was listening to just alone. And maybe some of my friends in high school would talk about it.

But even then, like, I had friends in high school who liked rap music who were not on the blogs and were not listening to fucking odd future. And then all of a sudden, that's all anything was. And it's like a few years after this when I was actually going to, when I was actually.

music writer, you would get something like Lil Nas X in Old Town Road and you had an actual map for virality. But around this time, it was just like, oh, the Clancy's I do think had a very, very big hand in kind of like making a launch pad to be like, all we need is a little bit of fire for this to become an inferno. But yeah, it's, if I sound like kind of nostalgic for this moment. This was probably like the first and last time where this type of virality actually felt like novel and like interesting because then after that people would be following the map that odd future had kind of laid out. Right. Should I should I get into some of the album facts? Yeah. Let's do it. All right. So Tyler released the second album on May 10th, 2011. The 15 song

project produced three singles, sandwiches, Yonkers, and She. Tyler handled the bulk of the production with frequent collaborators showing up like Frank Ocean, Ajie, Damo and Mike G. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, selling 45K in its first week. Do you have any larger concepts of this album or is it more so kind of in line with? Yeah,

it's pretty much what we said yet last time. I think what is interesting, though, for people that don't know, narratively, um, the order of the trilogy is bastard wolf, Wolf

Goblin So Goblin is the end of the story. This is most people interpretation and I agree after studying

a little bit for this. Where Tyler reveals that T.C. is Tyler's conscious. Yeah.

So yeah, so through line again is Dr. T.C. Tyler having this conversation.

This time it's inside of an insane asylum after the events of Wolf happened. We realize on the

song Window, um, Tyler kills all his friends, kills Frank Ocean, I think kills Haji. And that leads to the conflict of the last song where Dr. T.C. calls in medics to try to medicate Tyler. And then at the end, Dr. T.C. reveals that all the characters on the album, Tron Cat, Ace, Wolf Haley, all these people he's been rapping from different perspectives are all in his head. Dr. T.C. is Tyler's conscience and all the storyline of Wolf trilogy. everything has been in Tyler's head the whole time,

which not quite the sixth sense twist ending. A teenager is a story made by a teenager. Exactly. So again, nothing like too crazy deep. I think it is, again, interesting that he's working conceptually from day one

and following through on this trilogy, interconnected stories. Even if it's not the strongest interconnected trilogy, at least he's going for it. I mean, that's pretty ambitious on your first attempt at 18 years old. mean, even we're talking about aesthetically, I do think that it's amazing to me that the aesthetic would grow over the bastard goblin wolf, but it's all the same. Whereas like everything he's

rapping about, the beats get better, the art gets better, but it's still the same world. But if we get to nominations, I think we should just get it out of the way. We both probably did pick Yonkers. Yeah, you got to. Yonkers is, I want to talk to you about Yonkers. We talked a little bit about the video, but what is so interesting about the song is that it is both the track that ignites everything for Odd Future and Tyler, but it also casts such a shadow over his career. You can tell that Tyler ends up resenting it because it almost paints him into a box is the weird kid, to your point, that's like eating the cop. cockroach sang all this wild shit. And even when he talked, he was on, on his radio show,

we talked to Vince Staples about like essentially how he made this beat very, very quick. It was a joke of them joking about how like New York rappers rap, hence the title, Yonkers. But once again, similar like ass milk with all sweatshirt. It is not lost on me that Tyler's biggest record up until that point and his biggest record for a while was him dumbing it down to such an extent that anybody could get it. Yeah.

Where it's like, it's weird to think about because like Yonkers doesn't have like a hook. And the beat isn't a traditional like beat that you would hear and be like this is a hit. But when you put all the pieces together, I'm like, of course this would be your biggest hit. It's when it's, it's you at your most pure because you're not overthinking. You didn't overthink the beat. You're not overthinking the lyrics. It is just pure unadulterated, Tyler. And I think maybe why he didn't like being pigeonholed to this one song or a moment,

is that the beat isn't really reflected of him. No. It doesn't sound like your classic Tyler, the creator beat. Like all the elements that I talked about earlier, the beautiful chords, the, you know, we get a synth riff, but it's not the chords. We don't really get any of those elements. I actually want to recreate the beat really quick for you. But it's like, I think that's part of it, too, where it didn't really.

showcase everything he was doing he kind of got famous off of mockery you know um which is for in his mind i assume is like pegging him as an incomplete artist you know i'm i'm not this guy my world is bigger than this my i have more expansive color palette than this but do you think because to me at this point the knock against tyler and it would continue for a couple albums is that he's an interesting producer, but he has not yet been able to jump over his influences. You can tell when he's trying to make a Farrell beat. You can tell when he is trying to cobble together a song that sounds like an Eminem song. Yonkers, because he is so blatant that he's kind of making fun of what he deems as a very,

I don't know, like caveman way of rapping of like, this is that real. New York shit. I'm like, Tyler, there's a reason why that shit works. You know what I mean? I'm just like,

hey, people like PB&J sandwiches. I don't know what to tell you, man. Some things go great together. And his voice sounds great. It sounds incredible. It's so clear.

And even the opening line, when we talk about some of the greatest opening lines I'm going to fucking walk a paradox. No, I'm not. Is once again, in the same way that bastard

as a song. Tells you everything you need to know about Tyler. I'm a fucking walking paradox. No, I'm not. Tells you everything you need to know about Tyler. And it's a joke. It's like the punchline is right there in one bar.

It's so funny. Like this entire, he's rapping on this, not just his voice. His rapping is incredible on this. No, it's really good. I mean, like,

so if you actually, I didn't realize this until sitting down with it for this episode, that whole first verse is all the lines are paradoxes. Yes. So the next one, threesomes with a fucking triceratops. Obviously he's playing with the three horns of a triceratops and a threesome. But then he says Reptar. Reptar is not a triceratops. It's a T-Rex from Rugrats. So there's the, you know, there's a contradiction there. He says, I'm rapping, uh, rapping as

I'm mocking deaf rock star. So deaf rock stars being paradox. Next line, wearing synthetic wigs made of Anwar's dreadlocks. Anwar, his friend had real drag locks. So they wouldn't be synthetic if he was wearing a wig made of, you know what? So you go through the, entire thing. I think it what does he say about Sid having sex with men? Well, obviously that's a paradox. I was going to point that out

because Tyler's becoming a better rapper in such a, like it's funny with like kids, with teenagers, how fast they grow in anything, whether it is music or art or sports. Cause swallow the cinnamon, I'm a scribble, this sin and shit while Sid is telling me that

she's been getting intimate with men. That, just is rhyme scheme alone. Incredible. Like he's becoming so good. where it's like, I know I made a lot of fun on Basser where it's like, Earl just comes on the shit and he's like, Earl is killing him. That to me reminds me of like an Earl bar

where the internal rhyme and how he's getting it off. Of course, as we get through this project, we're going to be like, we're going to keep pointing out times where we're like, oh, no, Tyler can really rap. Yonkers to me, even though it's as a joke, he's actually showing you like, oh, I'm kind of a good rapper. Yeah, yeah. Okay, could I, because he said he made it in the beat in five minutes.

I actually believe him because I want to just very quickly walk you through. Walk me through. So there is, Justin will remember this, but there is, it used to be, maybe it's still around, but no one uses it. There used to be a music program called Reason. Did you own Reason? I never used Reason. I'm familiar with Reason.

I had friends who used Reason. I was more of an FL studio. Don't call it Fruitilups, Guy. Okay. So when you get a program like Reason, it comes with like stock sounds. Yeah. So essentially every, I think every element of this song is a stock sound on reason. So the main quote unquote sample that iconic kind of weird sound comes from a set pack that comes with reason.

It's an FX pack. So it's just like random weird sounds. So I pulled a couple of the sounds that would be on, if you're just pressing keys on this sample pack, you would find stuff like this. Just just rent just random. him shit like this and then one of them just happens to be that. So all he does is just straight eighth notes, that one sound. But I think why he recognized this as having that New York quality,

if you listen to the sound closely, when you trigger it, that's when it starts, that's not the peak of the sound. It kind of rolls into the sound. So the peak is offbeat. So listen. kind of ramps up quick like that.

And so when you repeat it, you get that natural like slump, you know, that it's associated with, you know, Jay Dilla obviously has, I mean, even when you listen to that,

you want to know what it reminds me of is like, because I lives in New York for a while, is when a subway is like overhead, like, and you're seeing it go and it's that. Oh, turn, turn, turn,

turn, yeah. When you repeat it, it's like a very like staccato. Like, and that's when that's when, That just now reminded me. I'm like, oh, it reminds me of a subway.

Like going above above you. Well, so like that natural slump when you put a straight beat to it is what that's where the magic is. It's that I mean, it's automatically syncopated and just like so groovy. There's no hi-hat either. It's so simple. And so when he comes in, his voice is just so crystal clear. And then the only really, I mean, there's some piano chords towards the end of the song

that are pretty buried in the mix that are very Tyler. But the only like Tyler thing, quote of quote about the song is the baseline. Because early in his music, he's doing a lot. He essentially goes straight for dissonance because he wants that dark kind of haunting quality. Yeah. So he's using this interval a lot. It's called a minor second. It's basically the two closest keys on a keyboard.

If you play them together, you get that real crunchy dissonance like this. And so the baseline is just a minor second. out. Okay. So it's just under this kind of whatever you want, how you want to describe the main beat, you do have this kind of menacing quality of that's pretty iconic of Tyler's early work. And so when you put it together, it's just kind of magic.

I actually come to really like this beat. I love this beat. Not only is it magic. I do think that it speaks to what maybe I miss a little bit about Tyler, which is the simplicity. as he gets better at being a producer, everything gets bigger. He gets better at controlling his voice. He gets better at song structure.

But there is just something so magical about it. A beat he makes in like 15 minutes. Right. And just straight rapping over it and just because he doesn't, to me, he doesn't even like really rap over this type of dark sound as much. Even when we get to Wolf, like everything starts. it becomes a lot brighter and a lot more in your face. And this to be as I'm just like, nah, I do miss when Tyler was just rapping over to the grungy.

Yeah. How do you feel about this song, Justin? Are you a fan of Yonkers? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love it. I might be getting ahead and I'm not going to ask you guys to respond to this yet. But I don't know if it's a song that I personally would choose to exemplify Tyler. Right.

But every time it's on, like listening to it a lot this weekend, I've restarted it like 10 times. I have always liked this song. And I think this was the song that made a lot of those old heads I was referring to, like kind of like perk up and be like, huh. I kind of like this song, but I'm feeling a little uncomfortable. I don't know what's going on here. Hey, Yonkers is going to go far. I don't want like no, I don't want to like spoil anything.

I've come around from being like, oh, Yonkers is cool. like, being like, oh, Yonkers is great to long, like Yonkers is cool back to like,

I don't know, I like his early shit better. Yonkers is a baby. It's really good. It's really good. And the video, obviously, is iconic.

It's, it's age, for me, it's age very well. It feels like a cultural artifact. Put it in a museum. This represents a time, you know.

Yeah. Okay. So that, who's nominate? Was that your nomination? I think both of us nominated you. To me, I was like,

when we talk about goblin, you probably have the quote. I might have it in here. He did an interview with GQ where he did not disown a lot of the album, but he was like, he listed all the songs that he thought were good and the rest. And I'm just like, yeah, this album, the highs are high.

Some of the songs are, I was like, yeah, you had to get this shit together fast, bro. Do you want, do you, who wants to nominate the next song? Because to me, it's super easy. well for me I don't know if we have the same song because to me there's a clear number two it's she

that's not number two that's not number two I hate she's right what wait what I hate I've always hated she what you even frank's parts golden rubbers in these denim pockets stinky stinky you get like you you pitch me on

wait Justin am I crazy I remember I know some like I know odd future fans like she I remember on this game I was like this fucking I don't have a horse in this race I don't have strong feelings about she the odd future heads are going to kill you though they're going to kill you

She is like one of the ones for them. It is a perfect example to me of people thinking that Tyler and Frank have a lot of great chemistry together. Okay. I would say the chemistry, okay, this is, but this is the knock against she is also what makes it great is that the moment Frank Ocean comes on this album, you're like, oh, song structure. Yeah. Melody. A fully formed harvest. Like it's just like a breath of fresh air and a way.

No knock against Tyler's this album. But like, you can tell. at this point in their career. This is when Frank Ocean's writing Channel Orange. Frank is just on another level at this point. And he's even said that where he's just like, in an interview, they're asking like, how did he meet Frank? And he was like, yo, Frank was like an older brother figure. He was assigned to Def Jam at the time.

He was picking me up and his beamer. Like he at that point, he was like putting me onto restaurants and ways to live where it's like, even if Frank wasn't rich at that point, he was writing for other artists. And I do think it's, to your point, it's not lost on me that she is an actual song. Like, Yonkers is a song to me. She is a song to me. A lot of these are sketches. So I'm being a little bit of an asshole.

I think a lot of people like she because it is Tyler forecasting where he would get to, which is just like, I actually need to learn how to make a pop song. That's part of the reason why I nominated it, because what I think it shows is that Tyler's production by the, even by this point is very strong. Yeah. It's not even close to where he would go, but the chord progression of she is beautiful. Like it works technically.

There's some interesting things. If I have time, I can point out about it. But then you bring in an artist as fully formed as Frank, doing a thing that Tyler cannot do, which is sing. Yeah. And you see it all of a sudden,

it opens your mind to the brilliance of Tyler's production. That, to me, I don't really actually like Tyler's, versus that's the knock against this song. And to your point about them not having chemistry, they don't really, to me, sound great on this song together. Frank sounds good on this song. Frank sounds great on the song.

Tyler, I'm just kind of indifferent about. But I think as Tyler to me is as much a producer as he is a rapper. And you can kind of make the case that he's more of a producer than a rapper. And I think this exemplifies if he were giving songs his production to other people like a Frank, I think we would have earlier on seen him in a different light because he is doing complex chord progressions even at this point. The instrumentation is still not perfect, but she is a world.

You know, you can picture it in your mind. And when you bring in someone as great as Frank, it maximizes the potential of the production in a way that I don't think Tyler was ready to yet. He can do it in pockets and in short spurts. But rarely on Goblin or even Bastard can't he really. capture our tension from start to finish on a song. He does it every once in a while, but I think the knock against these early albums is that the songwriting is just not great.

It's hard to listen to a lot of these songs from start to finish after you've kind of gotten the initial vibe of it. I'm always kind of reaching for the next, a lot of these songs. Once you're done with the first verse, I kind of get it. And the song's not going to really go much place anywhere else. So that's kind of why I'm nominating it more as a showcase of production than I think the song works.

Conceptually, it's interesting. Like they're playing these different characters. Tyler's the stalker. Frank's playing this neighbor figure that moves in with this girl that this stalker is stalking. It's a very cinematic song. Yeah. When you like,

you're like to your point, this is when I listen to this song, I'm like, yeah, this is a kid who wants to produce for Justin Bieber and wants to collaborate with Charlie Wilson. This is, in the same way that like yonkers,

I think actually has. a lot of like what Tyler is good at. She is more of an example of, oh, this is actually what you want to do. Where it's like you actually want to be singing the Frank Ocean party. Exactly. And he hasn't figured out yet on this album. He does it a little bit on Wolf and definitely on Cherry Bomb. The hack that he comes up with that makes an album like Flower Boy work, makes an album like

Igor work, is that he becomes a master of blending his voice with someone else's. Yeah. And it's like he could, because he can't carry it on himself like. probably the most famous example of this is Earth, earthquake where he brings in Charlie Wilson to accentuate his voice. And Frank's kind of doing that without Tyler being there, but that's kind of the hack that he eventually discovers. He's not quite there yet.

So she, I think it's a great song. It's one of the ones I really like off this project. I'm surprised. A little bit surprised. But where are you going then for your nomination? Oh, sandwiches. Sandwiches is so fucking. The album version of the,

live version. Come on. All right. Does the album version hold up? The album version of most of these songs don't hold up. Like my memory of most of these songs is just like, it's way better when you perform this live. Seeing this song, like I was watching some of the old like South by Southwest performances, obviously the iconic Jimmy Fallon. Wolf gang is the Wolf.

So sick. It's, but also it's so funny because so many of like their court, like, even though Tyler is not necessarily great at song structure or hooks or choruses, he does know what makes something infectious to hear. He does know how to make anthems where it's like, to me, an anthem is different than like a catchy song. Right. Where it's like just repeating like Wolfgang, Wolfgang is just like, there's something. about how those words hit, kill people burn shit, fuck school. A lot of Tyler's early music to me is like he's taking stuff that like kids scrawl on a desk in detention and just being like that's a hook. And like that to me is what sandwiches is. I also, to me, Tyler is at his vest

when he is in on the joke. And it's such a funny thing with a fucking vider, I don't give a fuck who cries about his daddy in a blog because his music sucks or you fucking up truthfully I had enough and fuck for what papers I'm a rebel bitch I'm ashen blunts

once again Tyler is even if Tyler is maybe not perfect at maintaining that energy throughout a whole song that's such a fuck like that's such good rapping yeah I

to your point sandwiches even I remember I had the CD of Goblin I even though like I liked a lot of Tyler's music and something like what the fuck is this i was a kid who went out and bought goblin and to your point i remember putting it in in my like car and i was like why does it sandwiches sound like the youtube of them how does radicals give me the energy of and i i'm picking

sandwiches because i love the song listening to it again i it felt like being like 15 16 17 again. I get what your knock is against it. Because I had the same knock when I was listening to my, like in the car where I was just like, damn, this song is not as great without like a bunch of kids. Yeah. All right. So that's it for the nominations in, right? Oh, that's it for the nomination. Also shout out, I'm going to keep pedaling this. Haji beats. I don't know if he's with Nelly Fittato anymore, but like shout out Haji beats. Put respect on his name. Okay. some of their best songs have haji on them for a reason. Is there anything that we,

anything that we missed from this that people are getting mad that we didn't even give an honorable mention? Radicals, I think iconic for all the reasons that we just kind of talked about sandwiches for. It's kind of in that same thing. But sandwiches to me is a better song than Radicals, even though Radicals was the like, when you read all of the older reviews of the live shows or all of the pearl

clutching of like, oh my god what's happened to america radicals of lyrics and i don't know what it was about kill people burn shit fuck school that got people so scared but like looking back on it i'm like yeah that was such a quaint talk could you imagine us getting mad in an artist for saying this i was like all right get out of yeah it's funny to you going back because i was watching some old like news clips of early odd future when they were coming up and they were like interview I forgot whatever news program was featuring them. They're as in that same way of like controversial group.

They're interviewing kids at the time and they're like, you know, do you think that they mean it? And the kids are like, no, fuck no. Like it was so obvious to them that it was exactly that. It wasn't. Yes. Nothing really. If you were on Twitter and Tumblr in high school or college at the time, there was a like rolling eyes thing where I'm just like, guys, come on. Not only do they not mean it, you're uncool because you don't get the joke.

We should say this. I'm glad we didn't belabor this point at all. I do not co-sign a lot of the abhorrent lyrics that are on these records, but I do think it's important to contextualize in where Tyler was at in his career, where we were at as a society. and also Tyler has never come out talking about like exactly what his identity is, but I think it's safe enough to say that he is a queer artist. And I do think it's important to talk about these records because I'm just like, he's figuring it out.

And that's why I liked going back. I was just like, oh, he was always figuring it out. And even if he did not know how to say it, he always said it in an entertaining way. And I just cannot say that about most art that I ingest now. Okay, so let's get into the final section of the episode. So this is where Charles and I have to select the one song that we're taking from each album into the grand finale, World Rumble. So eventually all the songs that we pick one song per episode or one song per album for each of us are going to duke it out in a Royal Rumble. And that's how we'll whittle down to the last song standing.

Right now, we are picking songs off of, let's see. start with Bastard first. No one won the quiz section. So we don't really have someone who's going to choose first on what you want to take from Bastard. I feel like this is it's not. Yeah, we don't need to belabor it too much. I think it is very, very easy to who wants to go first?

I'll go first because I want Bastard. I want title track. If you wouldn't have picked Bastard, you just, it has to you. It's one of his most important songs. I'm going to pick French just because I love French. I think Tyler still loves French. It speaks to early our future French.

We don't have to belabor it. Now, I'll say, that means in fairness, then you get to pick off a goblin first. We got to go with yonkers. Someone has to pick yonkers. One of us was going to pick yonkers.

I think because Justin did remind me that people love she. Okay, you're going to be, that was going to say, then you got to be okay with me picking she. Because I think, I think French does what sandwiches does. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I wanted something that reflected that early, odd future energy. And if it wasn't going to be sandwiches, it was going to be French. I just do think Yonkers is just, we don't have to talk. People don't know why we picked it. It's the best song. I think of all the songs we picked, it's easily the best song by far so far. I think so.

All right. So we got our picks from each album. We need to explain the coach's challenge. So every season, Justin gets a coach's challenge, which means that he has one pick out of all the Tyler albums where he can come in and interject and say, hey, you guys picked Bastard in French, but this song really needs to be in the discussion. I'm using my coaches challenges. I'm going to nominate this song. So Justin, do you want to use your Coaches Challenge for any of these albums so far? anything that we missed that needs to be to be mentioned.

What if I, what if I just came in and said, yeah, we got to use this for Transylvania. Jeez. We got to get Tron Cat in here. Both songs that I kept skipping. I'm like, I need, like, I ended up, wasn't to him. I'm like, I hate Transylvania. I hate Tron. Neither of those are the worst song on that album.

BSD exists. Yeah. Not going to use it on ass milk. Yeah, I'm not going to use it on ass milk. I'm not going to use it on Blow VCR is a song that we skipped over in the bastard discussion that that's another one in the she category

that the fans really love that I personally really like nightmare before we recorded I played it for Cole and Cole was did not really what the fuck with it is just you know it's just another song on the album kind of yeah but yeah I

I think that I'm going to save the coaches challenge on this one. Smart. Hell yeah. Is that it? That's it. We're done. Longer episode, but these are very important,

important hours. A lot of setup. Yes. So next, so next we're going to do another combined episode. We'll do Wolf and Cherry Bomb together. Hell yeah. All right.

So thanks to producer Justin. Thanks to our engineer Jason. Kevin Pooler, video editor, theme music by bureaucratic as always. Hell yeah. We'll see you next week. All right, we're back.

This is one of my favorite, favorite segments. We always have a cultural exchange every single, every single season. You give me something that is important to you. It could be movies, TV, books, whatever. I do the same. And we try to open. We really bonded over these five seasons. I feel like we, when we started out, like, we kind of barely knew each other.

Yes. And now we are best modes. Yeah. So you asked me, you kind of picked. I did. For me, you're just like, hey, I'm trying to kind of like get into anime, that whole world. Charles, I know you're a fan. I'm starting to get a little bit more people that don't know I'm Japanese, part Japanese, my mom's Japanese.

I'm trying to get a little bit more in touch with that side of my, my history. And you're being a big anime fan. Yes. You're going to, this entire season, you're going to just. What? Some call me a weeb. Wait, I don't even know what a weeb is. What's a weeb?

Webe is a stand for, for anime. I would say you don't want to be a weep, but maybe I am. And what I'm going to start you off with, Miyazaki, but not a movie, okay? Meazaki, everybody, anime, like, start with Miyazaki, but instead of starting with a movie, one of my favorite films, just in general, is called The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness. It is a documentary where it follows Miyazaki making what was then supposed to be one of his final films, The Wind Rises. And I wanted to start you there because it shows the process of how difficult it is to make anime, especially at a time where Pixar is coming up. So hand-drawn animation is something that is being lost.

and you're watching a master in the later stage of his career, the full process from drawing storyboards to working with the voice actors. And I love this film so much because it doesn't just show you what makes Miyazaki such a singular talent. I think it shows what makes anime such a gargantuan undertaking, especially as the years go on, what makes it so beautiful to me. I think a lot of people like, anime's just Dragon Ball C and Pokemon. And I'm like, yeah, there's that. But there is also just in the same way that you have Mozart or Beethoven.

I think Miyazaki is someone where like, oh, someone had to literally carve this out of stone. And it is incredible that we even, that this even got made and put on a screen. So I would start with that just to open you up to like, it shows you the full process from the beginning to end of how you make an anime film. Okay. I do. So next time I'll give you my first official assignment. I do have a mini assignment for you.

What's your mini assignment? So we've talked a lot about youthful music. Okay. Tyler making music 17, 18. I'm going to reveal to you the music that I made at 18, 19 years old. It's a band called people can go listen to it if they really want. Someone uploaded some of our music to YouTube. It's called Red Top Road. is the band name. It was an indie rock band that I joined.

They existed with a little bit before I joined. I was a senior in high school going to El Grove High. Indy rock, we were trying to be at the drive-in. Essentially is how I'd describe it. But the song I want you to listen to is called Deadbolt Rodeo. Okay. It's the first song on our last EP that we put out and come back with your thoughts. He's like fucking crisp.

Hell yeah. Are you still, are you still in touch with the members of the band? Yeah, I mean, not like every day, but I still see the singer out in Sacramento a lot. My best friend, Jaden, was a bass player in the band. He lives on the other side of the country now, but yeah, we're still close. How fucking. I think it holds. I don't know. I mean, I'm biased, but I haven't listened to it a long time. And I was like, it holds up. It's like, let me make sure this holds up before I said to Charles.

I'm like, it's not bad. Are we going to play some of this next episode? Yeah, we'll play it. little bit. All right. Hell yeah. Guys, we will see you next week. Cool.