Dissect - S4E1 - Tyler the Creator: Flower Boy

Episode Date: April 23, 2019

Our season long examination of Flower Boy by Tyler, the Creator begins with a biographical episode on Tyler’s upbringing in Los Angeles, the genesis of Odd Future, and Tyler’s discography leading up to the release of Flower Boy. Listen to Dissect on Spotify and enjoy episodes a week early + exclusive bonus content. For 60 free days of Spotify Premium, visit spotify.com/promo/dissect. Follow @dissectpodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode contains music with explicit lyrics. Listener discretion is advised. On February 10th, 2011, 19-year-old producer-rapper Tyler the Creator, uploaded to YouTube a music video for a new song entitled Yonkers. The high-contrastre-black video begins with Tyler alone on a stool rapping into camera. 20 seconds in, Tyler brings to eye-level his left hand to reveal a live coffee. The cockroach crawls across his hands and arm. The camera slowly zooms in on Tyler's face as he stares intensely at the cockroach.

He then puts the cockroach in his mouth and chews. Yonkers was the majority of the world's introduction to Tyler the creator. The video went viral, amassing millions of views in just weeks, propelling Tyler and his Los Angeles crew of creative's odd future into the global consciousness. The provocative imagery of yonkers proved to be a fitting introduction as Tyler and Odd Future quickly became a polarizing sensation. The controversial music and generally defiant disposition was adored by disenfranchised youth, but scorned and protested by those offended by their explicit lyrics and pension for disruption.

Controversy did little to hinder Tyler and Odd Future's sudden ascension. Between the years 2010 and 2014, the collective sustained a strong cultural presence through their aggressive output of self-made albums, music videos, branded clothing, a Comedy Central TV show, and an annual Odd Future music festival. But by 2015, just four years after the debut of the Yonkers video, Odd Futures flame as a unified collective seemed to be waning as its individual members pursue their own personal projects. Tyler specifically found himself at a crossroads. His 2015 album Cherry Bomb had been met with mixed reviews. In the same year, Tyler Tyler was banned from entering both Australia and the United Kingdom for lyrics he wrote

some six years prior. His back against the wall, his career in jeopardy, the stakes for Tyler's next album, at least in his own head, couldn't have been higher. I just knew if this album wasn't good, I would be fucked. That's how I felt it. Some people would disagree, but I'm like, man, I'm not, I'm nothing right now. You felt that way coming off Cherry Ball? Yeah, yeah, because everyone hated it.

For his next album, Tyler would take a long, introspective look within, questioning his success, his motives, his identity, his chronic loneliness, and his purpose in the world. The result of this pensive self-examination would be 14 songs colored with a pastel palette of lush harmony and vibrant orchestral-like sonic textures. It would become Tyler's most successful and expressive album to date, the project that many felt finally fully showcased the immense talent he'd shown throughout his young career. Of course, we're talking about Tyler the Creator's 2017 album, the subject of Season 4 of Dysect, Flower Boy. Run it, run it, run it, run it,

I run. Flower Boy is a cinematic coming of age story set in a car ride at Sunset. Tyler invites the listener to ride shotgun as he drives a metaphoric roads of his own psyche. Call it maturation, a quarter-life crisis, or a recalibration of one's internal GPS, Flowerboy challenged the now 26-year-old Tyler the creator's reputation as a loudmouth provocateur. Songs like 9-1-1 Mr. Lonely reveal that Tyler's animated personality is in part used to mask his perpetual loneliness. While the song Garden Shed finds Tyler, an artist once accused of homophobia, intimately disclosing to the world his closeted attraction to men.

Gautorship, gaudenship, gaudenship for the Gauddian, that is what I was hidean, that was real love I was in, ain't no reason to pretend. Goddashire, godorship, goddash, goddash, goddash, goddash, goddash for the ghost songs, and feelings that I was gauden, heavy on my mind, all my friends of my friends'all. Over the next 14 episodes, we're going to unpack Tyler the creator's Flower Boy in incredible detail. Through intense song-by-song analysis, we'll come to discover just how Tyler weaves together recurring lyrical motifs and symbols to tell a cohesive, expressive story of

self-discovery and how his unique approach to harmony, instrumentation, and tasteful sound design helps posit his story in a beautifully immersive sonic environment. We'll come out the other side of our analysis with a better understanding of not only Tyler the creator, but by proxy, a better, more empathetic understanding of the human experience. Because if the kid who introduced himself by eating a cockroach can teach us anything, is that there's always more to a person than first meets the eye, that who we were yesterday isn't always who we are today, and that within even the most hardened exterior lies the seeds of beauty, and often all one needs is a little water to fully bloom. And so with that, and without further ado, let's dissect. Tyler Gregory Accoma was born on

March 6, 1991. Tyler never knew his father, instead raised by his single mother, and he was raised by a single mother, in Los Angeles, California. From an early age, Tyler was interested in music more than he was toys. When he was seven, many years before he could play an instrument, Tyler would remove the album art from his CDs and create original covers for his own imaginary albums, including fictitious track list complete with song lengths. I've been in the music since a young one like the only seven-year-old spending birthday money at Sam Goody and like Best Buy on albums and every Christmas getting the catalogs and not looking at toys, like only getting music and stuff and like focusing on, um, I like the different sounds of stuff. I started, started rhyming words at like

seven. And around 12 is when I start like trying to play piano and play instruments and I taught myself drums and things like that. Tyler moved frequently during his youth. He attended 12 different schools and 12 years, mostly in the Los Angeles area. In school, Tyler always felt felt alienated from his black peers due to his interests in rock music skateboarding, drawing and film. I don't have parents. I had a mom. She worked hard enough. I grew up at the dirty escape part. Always doing little mischie and shit. Any other kid would do. I didn't play sports. I hated it. Nothing too crazy. I liked music. Seven grade, they used to fuck with me because

I was in the, I wore a black trucker hats and fucking, the shiny fucking little, uh, I was in the, accessories, like all black, black fucking slip-knock and good Charlotte Tees and shit. They used to call me white boy and shit, and I hated that shit. Like, why can't I just be a fucking human? Like, really? That shit irks me when people bring race and the dumb shit. Like, why can I just be a fan of the music, you know? Tyler found his community of music outside of school.

Before he discovered hip-hop, Tyler listened to the 90s R&B and Neo Soul music his mother was into. So the age where like you start really, I've always been in the music. But the music I was listening to in like 97, 98 was Shadez Love Deluxe. Erica Badoo Badooism. Joe Pich and that's because that's what was around. Alex Bune, Boy's to Man's Evolution album, like Maya's first album, Usher's for Destiny's Child's first album. Those are the things I was listening to.

In 1998, at seven years old, Tyler was given his first hip-hop album, Behind the Front by the Black Eyed Pease. That's the joint. That's the jam. Turn that shit up. And like around seven, my aunt gave me this Black I Peas album behind the front,

that first album. The instrumentals were kind of similar to the music that I would listen to, like the jazzier stuff she would listen to, but they were rapping over it and listening to like the radio going to school, like fucking Snoop Dog and Debcy and shit. Like I was like, you know, that shit's tight.

But it mixed two of these things together. and I was like, oh my god, this is sick. And then I got 2001 by Dr. Dre the Christmas after that. And my mom's tight. I was fucking eight years old listening to that shit. Yeah. Fucked me up. At the age of 12, Tyler began producing hip-hop beats on the computer programs, Reason

and Fruity Loops. His teenage years in the early 2000s coincided with the rise of multi-talented producer Farrell Williams and his musical projects, The Neptunes, and NERD. Farrell would become Tyler's biggest musical influence and personal idol, and it's not hard to understand why. Farrell was a black musician who effectively expanded the boundaries of hip-hop. Musically, he assimilated hip-hop, rock, R&B, soul, and electronic music into a singular, unique,

commercially viable sound. Simultaneously, Ferrell embraced fringe countercultures like skateboarding and BMX bikes, working these into his music videos at the time. For a 13-year-old kid who was ridiculed for liking these exact. things, Pharrell made Tyler feel more comfortable in his own skin. In the summer of 2006, Ferrell released his debut solo album, In My Mind. The album had an incredible, long-lasting influence on Tyler. Quote, In My Mind ranges in different styles and sounds, and I believe that's why I gravitated to it so much. The song that stood out was, you can do it too.

Being 15, black, not really interested in what the majority of my peers were into, It made me feel safe. I was optimistic, always daydreaming and setting goals, so I felt he was directly speaking to me. Tyler continues, telling me how Jimmy Iveen thought this album was a complete fucking failure, that it didn't work. But see, it did. just not on the kids he was looking at.

It worked on me and I created odd future that same summer. I was actually naive enough to believe you and I thought you can do all these amazing things if I really tried. Where I grew up, N-Words get stuck and never make it out. Jail, dead, shit jobs, not really growing. I never had brothers, uncles or my father

around, so thank you for being the male figure I gravitated to, allowing me to embrace being different and trusting my ideas, unquote. Tyler was inspired by Farrell in the summer of 2006 to create Odd Future Wolfgang Kill Them All, more commonly abbreviated to Odd Future. Originally conceptualized as a magazine, Odd Future would evolve into a diverse collective of over a dozen like-minded creatives. Cool thing, I didn't go to school with most of them. I met some of them at skate park

or like through mutual friends because my original idea was a magazine which included everything I was into, whether it was music, art, movie. movies, clothes, colors, a bike, wood, like whatever. And all my friendships that I have now is all connected through one of those webs. So I'm friends with certain photographers that I like and people who do music and it turned into a collective. The initial core members of Odd Future were Tyler the creator, Left Brain, Haji Beats, and Jasper Dolphin.

By 2008, the duo known as Super 3 joined the collective as well as Casey Veggies. Together they completed their first mixtape dubbed The Odd Future Tape, released for free on the internet in November of 2008. And I present to you, to you all, the Odd Future Compilation. What fuck, give it up. Starring, KCV. The majority of the tape's vocals were recorded on a computer camera microphone. And even though Tyler was just 17 years old, and still going by the rap alias, Ace, he displays an undeniable charisma and lyrical fluidity. Tyler was also the producer of

12 of the tape's 19 tracks, and you can hear early iterations of what would become his trademark chord progressions placed over slumping drums. Damn, back for another one with robots, I'm so hot, chicone, now here's a fucking sweater. Look, I can't have no other fun with my props probably because he's out with his other son. But I'm super steazy like my last beat, my bitch super greasy like her lunch me, good Upon its initial release, the Odd Future tape didn't make much of an impact and was largely ignored by hip-hop blogs of this era. Nonetheless, in the years that followed, On Future would add members Sid the Kid, Domogenesis,

Earl Sweatshirt, Mike G, Taco, and Lonnie Bro, later known as one Frank Ocean. Sid and Taco had a small recording studio at their house, and it was here that the collective would record an impressive amount of music in 2009 and 2010. In the span of one year, the various members and subsets of Odd Future released 11 mixtapes for free on the Odd Future Tumblr page, including 16-year-old Earl Sweeter's debut project, Earl. And rolling papers by Dachanautrin'Arin'Aboron, Rheating applesauce, since the earth to poke tablets and the astrosse and knock the ashins into their caskets and laugh it off. And rolling papers by Domo Genesis. Push you into an old lady bag and plastic. Hope you get the message I'll stump you into potholes

and fill you up with shells, but you're used to eating tacos. Oh, a taco joke, Damo Smoke, I heard your album sound like some shit of fake Woods, Khalifa Popo. But the standout tape of the year was its first. Tyler the creator's debut solo project, Bastard, released on Christmas Day in 2009. This is what the devil plays before he goes. those asleep. 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 piano

because I'm so depressed. Somebody caught a pastor. This bastard is so possessed. This meeting just begun. With Bastard, Tyler the creator combined his love of harmonically rich chords with his thematic instincts towards subversion. The album begins with Tyler talking to his shrink and positioned as such, Bastard is a glimpse into the 18-year-old psyche and imagination. Tyler rails against his absent father, details the disobedient street antics of his crew, and on the song Blow, raps from the perspective of serial killer Ted Bundy. If you wanted a date don't come, now you gotta make it easy for you don't run. You call the shit kids where I call these kids come and you call this shit rape, but I think that

rate's fun, wait, now it's about eight something. It's late and you stuck down in my base one. Come downstairs with nothing but a shoe string. Yeah, bitch, this date's done. the juxtaposition of Tyler's often lush, Ferrell-inspired production and his explicit subject matter, combined with the raw skill he exhibited at such a young age. Well, it was all too interesting to be ignored.

Throughout 2010, Tyler the creator and Odd Future quickly carved out of buzzing internet presence through the relentless output of self-produced music and DIY video content released on Tumblr, YouTube, and Odd Future.com. The crew quickly transcended the music they were producing, becoming an iconic click of skateboarding internet kids, youthfully terrorizing the streets of Los Angeles and online foreign boards alike. They were funny, they were talented, they were cool, and they clearly didn't give a fuck. Got all the black bitch is mad cause my main bitch Vanella. She's trying to get her cool back like Stella.

Grab the umbrella. When it comes to your perception of my shit, I'm Helen Keller. When it comes to the perfection of my shit, I know you smell the, rack, The black and white video for this song, French, features Tyler vomiting, a street fight, someone jumping out of a moving car, and tagging walls with spray paint, all of which is interjected between Tyler's animate rapping into camera. It was this song and video that attracted the attention of Christian Clancy, a former marketing executive at Interscope Records that previously worked with artists like Eminem and 50 Cent.

Clancy eventually reached out to the crew, and he and his wife Kelly would soon take on management duties for Tyler and Odd Future. Clancy told Buzzfeed, quote, It was fascinating to see a group of kids that truly thought for themselves. They were everything I missed in the record business. It was fuck you, but it was confidence, and it was authentic, and it was pain, and a lot of fatherless kids. It was also a portrait of what happens when you have kids who grow up on the internet and ADD drugs. It seemed to represent the culture even more.

It just felt cool, unquote. The Clancy's provided a logistical infrastructure that allowed Odd Future's vision to scale. In late 2010, they performed for the first time outside of Los Angeles, playing two sold-out shows in New York and London. Throughout 2010, Odd Future amassed a cult following online and became a trending topic among music journalists and label reps. But in 2011, Odd Future would ascend from teenage internet stars to a worldwide cultural phenomenon. It all started on February 10th, 2011, the day Tyler the creator uploaded a music video for a new track entitled Yonkers. Threesomes with a fucking triceratops,

Reped hard, rapping as I'm mocking deaf rock stars wearing synthetic wigs made of Anwar's dreadlocks, bedrock, harder than a motherfucking flinchstone, making crack rocks out of pussy nigger fish bones. When we return, we'll come to find out how Tyler's most well-known song actually started out as a joke. plus a whole lot more, right after the break. Welcome back to Dissect. Given what we know about odd future and their sarcastic raw approach to creativity, it's fitting that Yonkers, the song and viral video that would catapult the crew into the national spotlight began as a joke.

According to Tyler, the beat was made as a mockery of East Coast hip-hop, hence the name Yonkers, a city in New York. Quote, that beat was made as a joke. I was trying to make a shitty New York beat, and we were just rapping like we were from York. And then people really liked it. That's so nuts because that shit was actually a joke. I made that beat in literally eight minutes, unquote. As we discussed at the top of the episode, Yonkers was accompanied by a black and white music video that featured Tyler flirting with and ultimately eating a cockroach. Equally provocative were the song's lyrics, which range from

talking back to Jesus. Marimor's Haley Williams, rapper B.O.B. and singer Bruno Mars all in the same breath. What you think of Haley Williams? Bops her. Wolf Haley robin'em. I'll crash that fucking airplane at that faggot-n-nignaug Bhabis in and stab Bruno Mars and his goddamn esophagus and won't stop until the cops come in. Indeed, everything about Yonkers, the song and video, was aimed to provoke. And it did. Yonkers wasn't a hit. It was something like a cultural moment. The video alone amassed millions of YouTube views in the span of a few weeks, it became the subject of countless think pieces from online

and physical media outlets. And while some only spoke of its shock value, it was becoming apparent that Odd Future could no longer be dismissed as the antics of a bunch of rowdy, attention-seeking internet kids. They were producing some of the most interesting and innovative hip-hop in recent years. From the roots, please welcome Tyler the creator and Hajie Beach from Odd Future. Adding fuel to the fire, Tyler appeared on late night with Jimmy Fallon just a week. after Yonkers was uploaded to YouTube. Alongside Odd Future member Haji Beats and a silent, unexplained demonic teen and a psych ward gown, Tyler proceeded to incite a one-man riot. Clothed in a white Supreme hoodie, his face covered with a green ski mask. Tyler frantically

stalked the small smoke-filled stage. Midway through the performance, he runs offstage to Fallon's desk, screams in Fallon's ear, and jumps over his guest couch. Between Yonkers and Jimmy Fallon, Odd Future and their charismatic ringleader Tyler the Creator had officially arrived. In 2011 alone, the group partnered with Sony to start their own Odd Future record label, developed their own sketch comedy show Loiter Squad on Comedy Central, embarked on a 27-stop US tour, launched an Odd Future clothing line, and released the compilation album 12 Odd Future songs. 2011 also saw the solo releases of Frank Ocean's debut mixtape Nostalgia Ultra

and Tyler the creator's first commercial album, Goblin. You wouldn't do that, Tyler. Kill yourself or anyone. You don't even have the balls to begin with. What you need is me. Someone to talk to. Like Bastard, Goblin was written and produced entirely by Tyler himself. Thematically, he builds on the foundation laid on Bastard.

We once again find Tyler speaking to a shrink in between, songs that ranged from impersonating the serial killer Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lands to addressing directly the critics of this music and personality okay you guys call me i'm not a fucking rapist or a serial killer i lie i tried too hard huh Goblin debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, proving that odd future self-made model of DIY internet brand building could have real commercial value and cultural impact. Indeed, Tyler would go on to win Best New Artist at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. I can't, I really can't believe I'm here right now.

I didn't write a thank you speech, but I don't know. I'm about to cry. To all the kids that watch, to all the kids watching, All the kids that's watching, you can do this, yourself, be yourself, f*** the system, golf money, thank you. Goblin helped Tyler the creator transition from internet cult hero to a legitimate force in hip-hop. The album, however, came with its fair share of controversy.

While critical reviews were generally positive, Tyler's provocative subject matter oftentimes overshadowed his musicality. Most glaring were his fictional stories of rape, alleged misogyny, and use of homophobic slurs. Just two days after Goblin was released, female folk duo Tegan and Sarah issued a blog post entitled Call for Change. The piece denounces Tyler and his lyrical content, saying, While an artist who can barely get a sentence fragment out without using homophobic slurs is celebrated on the cover of every magazine, blog, and newspaper, I'm disheartened that any self-respecting

human being could stand in support with a message so vile, unquote. At the 2011 pitchfork music festival, a Chicago area domestic violence advocacy organization protested the performance of Tyler an odd future. Tyler, for his part, always defended his lyrical content on the basis of his music being art, no different than, say, a horror film that depicts similar acts. And regarding the use of homophobic slurs, he compares it to the use of the N-word in hip-hop, claiming that words do not inherently hold power, and that his specific use of the word doesn't have anything to do with one's sexual preference. In any case, the pushback Tyler

received regarding his early albums did little to slow the Odd Future collective down. If anything, controversy only contributed to their momentum, as 2012 proved to be another huge year for the crew. They released their first proper album entitled The O.F Tape Volume 2, a sequel to their original 2008 mixtape. Tyler and Odd Future would also hold the first ever Odd Future Carnival, known today as Camp Flognaw, an annual music festival curated by Tyler, complete with amusement park rides and carnival games. In July of 2012, Frank Ocean released his debut album Channel Orange to overwhelming critical and commercial success. Two years after the release of Goblin, Tyler would return in April of 2013 with his second studio album entitled Wolf.

Wolf is a loose concept album set at the fictional Camp Flogna for Troubled Youth. On the album's opening track, the characters Wolf and Sam are introduced to each other at camp. So you guys are in the jazz? Look, Wolf, Prairie Dog, Ronsale, whatever the fuck your name is. We don't fuck with you or anybody else here, all right? You stay the fuck out our way and we'll stay out of yours. Capish. Wolf and Sam's relationship remains hostile throughout the album as the two fight for the love and attention of Sam's girlfriend, Salem. Throughout the album, Tyler alternates between these characters, giving background to who they are and why they're troubled. For instance, The song Answer is written from Sam's perspective, and we learn how his anger stems from the hurt caused by his absent father.

Hey dad, it's me. Oh, I'm Tyler. I think I be your son. Sorry, I called you the wrong name. Having been sent to the camp office on the album's penultimate song, Tomali, Wolf ends with the song Lone. It's here that Wolf meets for the first time Dr. T.C. a shrink. So what's going on, Wolf? Talk to me, man.

People worry we hear stories about you getting the fights and all this unnecessary bullshit. It's what's on your mind. Talk to me. I'm here. Wolf tells Dr. T.C. a story about visiting his grandmother in the hospital on the night she died. Leave a sticker saying how I got in there. There's a room. Open up the curtain. She's just sitting there. Hello. Our conversation's brief. Couldn't even make eye contact when we speak. Looking at her, you can tell all she had was weak. I'm not talking days, bro. I'm talking about her street.

I sat there, 20 minute tops, hoping it was just a fucking plea that she could cop. She died that night. Dr. T.C. is the same shrink featured on both bastard and goblin, leading many to believe Wolf is actually a prequel to a larger narrative outlined on Tyler's first three solo projects. Upon its release in 2013, Wolf was met with generally positive reviews,

with most critics acknowledging Tyler's growth as a producer. Indeed, much of Wolf showcases Tyler's evolving use of richly voiced chords, unexpected harmonic shifts, and lush synthetic textures. 48, 48, 48, 6 I get it in. They call me Mr. Treats. Aside from the album's loose story art, the subject matter of Wolf is less reliant on the horror and rape fiction fantasies of Bastard and Goblin. Instead, we find Tyler attempting to make sense of his new life of celebrity and wealth.

On the song Colossus, Tyler raps from the perspective of an obsessive fan who credits Tyler's music for saving his life. I'm the happiest I think I'll ever, ever be. My life is just like yours. No father. My mama must have forgot to stop with a pop condom. In school, I was the one that was thinking outside boxes. So everybody in them was to say that I got problems. So when I heard you say it, I set it back like Bacham.

You're an inspiration in the niggas like me. Not the niggas who just like you because of lyrics and beats I'm talking about the niggas who don't know where they're going to be I heard the song bastard right in the moment of heat Not in the summer but of course I was holding a heat gun on the edge of my feet I heard that first piano chord and it drew me in like predators carrying treats Then I said to myself fuck as he's speaking to me see me and you we go together like snare in the beat On the song iF-HY Tyler collaborates with his idol feral Williams

representing just how far Tyler had come in very little time. Though it wasn't without its controversial moments, Wolf seemed to signal a shift from Tyler's more overtly subversive material. He told Spin magazine, quote, Talking about rape and cutting up bodies, it just doesn't interest me anymore. People who wanted the first album again, I can't do that. I was 18, broke as fuck. On my third album, I have money and I'm hanging out with my idols. I can't rap about the same shit.

Tyler's budding maturity was indicative of the overall maturation of the individual members of odd future. By 2014, activity and output from the collective slowed, as its members developed their own individual careers and projects. Sid the kid was making music and touring with her group the internet. Frank Ocean went into seclusion shortly after the release of Channel Orange. Earl's sweatshirt dropped an aptly titled album, I don't like shit, I don't go outside, solidifying himself as one of the most intriguing, talented lyricists in recent years, but one who prefers to remain in shadows. Looking back, it seems inevitable that Odd Future's time as a collective would be short-lived. Like most teenage groups of friends, they grew up, and while doing so, grew apart. And while they

may have introduced themselves to the world through youthful anarchy and punk rock-like spirit, hindsight now allows us to understand a forceful entry was necessary for the group to exist at all, because Odd Future wasn't invited into the traditional spaces of hip-hop, nor were they invited anywhere near the spaces of mainstream culture. So Odd Future created their own space. They are among the first to use the internet to voice a rally cry for disenfranchised youth, promoting individuality by transparently expressing themselves through their non-conformist music, goofy skateboard videos, and colorful clothing. Indeed, though Odd Future was labeled a collective, it seems a collective's strongest value was individualism. The youth gravitated toward them because they made room for

everyone, no matter your interest, your background, your skin color. They created a space for black kids who like rock music and white kids who like rap music. Odd Future's only requirement for entry was that you be yourself, your real self. For alienated internet kids around the world, seeing Odd Future win was like seeing themselves win. And in this way, their legacy transcends the music they produced. Odd Future was an approach to life, allowed at times uncomfortable assertion of independence, proof that conformity isn't a requirement of success and that a community can exist among the bazaar. In May of 2015, Tyler tweeted the closest thing to a formal acknowledgement of the end of odd future. After reminiscing over old photos of the crew,

Tyler said, quote, although it's no more, those seven letters are forever. Of course, the seven letters reference were OFWG KTA. Odd future, Wolfgang, kill them all. I was 15 when I first drew that donut. Five years later for our label, yeah, we own it. I started an empire. I ain't even old enough to jump the fucking girl tipsy off this soda pop. This is for the niggers and the suburbs.

And the white kids with nigger friends that say the N-word. And the ones who got called weird thag bitch nerd because you was in the jazz kitty cats and Stephen Spielberg. They say we ain't acting white, always try to turn my fucking color in the black and white, but they'll never change them, never understand them, radical's my anthem, turn my fucking ass up. So instead of critique in a bitch and being mad as fuck, just admit, not only are we talented, we're rad as fuck.

The unofficial disbandment of odd future coincided with Tyler's third commercial album entitled Cherry Bomb, released on April 13th, 2015. Cherry Bomb took two years to complete, and according to Tyler, was the first album he really focused on in detail. Cherrybaum's kaleidoscopic approach finds each song exploring a different musical genre as a means to express what Tyler describes as a photograph or moment in time.

At least on my album, every song is like a photo for me. Every song is like a moment, it's a mood. So two-seater, that's what it sounds like driving from Hollywood to where I live during the sunset in LA. That's actually my car noise. I recorded on my phone. And rhymes again.

Oh, Okaga, the last song sounds like that moment when you're with someone that you really like. And time doesn't matter. And you're just enjoying company. Fucking young sounds like being in a fucking sunflower field. They go to police and knock it at my door. Do I leave out the back and grab my wallet and cold? Or do I answer it confused? Like, I don't know.

I mean she. And while it could be easily argued, Cherry Bonfell. contains some of the best musical moments in Tyler's discography, many found the album's eclecticism disorienting. Songs like Keepa O's and the album's title track Cherrybomb, contrasted with the more melodic accessible songs like Find Your Wings and more hip-hop-centric tracks like Buffalo. Critically, Cherrybaum received mixed reviews and is easily Tyler's most polarizing project to date. Most critics noted that while the album contained moments of brilliance,

those moments were scattered and lost among the album's overall lack of cohesiveness. Andrew Unterberger of Spin wrote, quote, Cherrybaum is both impressive in its ambition and absolutely stunning in its aimlessness, weaving countless genres into multi-part sweets, but still coming off undercooked in its entirety, unquote. Despite feeling like Cherrybaum was his best album to date, Tyler recognized and even understood the album's mixed reception. Like I opened a rap album with a rock song. Most niggas is like, ugh, and then Buffalo comes, you can barely hear what I'm saying. Then pilot come, and it's this 80s music, so they're out because they won't rap.

Then run comes, they don't know, and then find your wings come. And it's like, okay, this is chill. Then Cherry Bomb just punches them. So they're out, and a lot of people didn't know how to take it. Just a few months after the release of Cherry Bomb, Tyler was, ban from entering Australia after a feminist organization protested his upcoming tour, citing his early lyrical content as, quote, posing a particular risk for incitement to violence against women, unquote. His Australian ban occurred just a year after Tyler and Odd Future were barred from entering

New Zealand, as they were deemed, quote, a potential threat to public order. In the summer of 2015, just a few months after his Australian ban, Tyler attempted to enter the United Kingdom for a string of festival performances. Despite being in the country just seven weeks prior, Tyler was denied entry at the border, told that he'd been banned from Britain for three to five years by Teresa May, the home secretary. Government papers cited lyrics from five songs on Tyler's first two projects, Bastard and Goblin. He was denied under the terms of Britain's home office policy, a set of guidelines written to prevent suspected terrorists from entering Britain. They claim that Tyler, quote, encourages violence and intolerance of homosexuality.

and quote, Foster's hatred with views that seek to provoke others to terrorist acts, unquote. Tyler, for his part, felt the bands were untimely, noting that he doesn't perform the old songs they listed, and his sense moved on from his more controversial lyricism. And I'm like, yo, what the fuck is going on? Why didn't they do this shit four years ago? Like, y'all niggas is late.

Like, we're off that. We're really off that. It was a bummer because it's like, damn, I didn't think at 18 the crazy shit. I was saying will really affect me five years later or whatever. Like, no one was listening. I didn't exist. Right.

I did not exist five years ago other than to my mom, my seven fucking friends, my grandmother and a cousin of mine and my manager at Starbucks. Other than that, I did not exist. So the fact that that shit is really affecting shit, like, you know, now is a bummer. Between the unofficial disbandment of odd future, the reception of Cherrybaum and is banned from New Zealand, Australia, and the UK. It's safe to say that 2015 wasn't Tyler the creator's best year career-wise. During this time, he told the Rolling Stone, quote,

I'm not shit. Ferell was on fucking Sesame Street yesterday, so when I'm thinking I'm on and I'm flexing, I'm not shit. I like seeing Kanye's backyard so I can know that I'm not shit, unquote. Clearly, Tyler envisioned himself ascending to the cultural and artistic status of his idols, and Cherry Bomb, while perhaps not a step back, was certainly not a step forward either. Tyler feared his career was beginning to fade, and so the stakes for his next album, at least in his own head, couldn't have been higher.

I just knew if this album wasn't good, I would be fucked. That's how I felt. And some people would disagree, but I'm like, man, I'm nothing right now. You felt that way coming off Cherrybaum? Yeah, yeah, because everyone hated it. Where Cherrybaum was a kaleidoscopic exploration of contrasting genres. For his next album, Tyler would take the opposite approach, consolidating his production powers to create a singular, cohesive sound that emphasized harmony and melody.

Cherry Bond was hard to get into because it was a whole album of bridges and shit going everywhere. So I was like, okay, let me for this album specifically add all the chords I like, but do it in a way they could digest. And while throughout his discography, Tyler had shown moments of real introspection. He decided for this next album, he'd cut the jokes and consolidate his raps. I kind of didn't want to rap a lot on it, so I kept all my rap verses. is short and everything I said, I made sure it was really ridiculously important. And I think that's what people kind of like about it this time around, because it's like nothing funny on it. This approach also seemed to be a reaction against his approach to Cherry Bomb. For Cherry Bomb,

my purpose is like, I don't want to get personal at all. Like, I'm going to just make songs. Yeah. It's just all just, this is all right, let me write down every feeling. Oh, you started with emotion. Just, just, a lot of them was just asking, questions. A lot of the songs just have questions and it's just like, how am I feeling the day? Fuck, what if I go poor again? What if it doesn't work? And then that's how a lot of the songs just happened, just me kind of just asking these, answering these questions. Through his intense introspective examination, Tyler composed a cinematic coming of age story set in a car ride at sunset. Complete with wrong turns, red lights, and potholes. We joined Tyler

on his journey to self-discovery as he questions his success, his motives, his sexual and his place in the world. The album's 14 tracks would become his most cohesive, most expressive, most successful project to date, earning Tyler's very first Grammy nomination. The album, as you know, is entitled Flower Boy, a beautiful, vulnerable body of work that will begin to examine note by note, line by line. Next time on Dysect. Dysect is written and produced by me. If you enjoyed today's episode, please help me spread the word by telling a friend, family member, or co-worker about the new season of Dysect. Follow Dysect Pod playlist on Spotify, where you can find a companion playlist for today's episode curated by yours truly.

Also, be sure to say hi at Dysect podcast on Twitter and Instagram and join our Dysk community group on Facebook. The original theme music you're hearing right now was written by Birocratic, song recreations by Andrew Atwood, additional research by Akash Pandey, Audio editing by Eric Bass and me. Throughout this season, we'll be featuring audio excerpts from a conversation between Tyler and comedian Gerard Carmichael. The hour-long video is entitled Flower Boy, A Conversation, available to view in full on YouTube. Okay, thanks everyone. I'll talk to you guys next week.