The mantel of macabre hip-hop has found a legitimate heir in Tyler Okonma, aka Tyler the Creator. The 20 year old Los Angeles native brings a fresh style of crass humor and crude imagery to the world of rap, along with a less than subtle disregard for the rules of the game. With his peculiar beats, brazen baritone vocals, and a lyrical arsenal inspired more from Adult Swim than Tupac or Biggie, his upcoming album “Goblin” shows promise of being an interesting musical head trip. One filled with excessive amounts of blood, sex, cinnamon, and violently catchy phallic references.
The Creator hit the scene in 2007, with his not-so-official first piece ”The Odd Future Tape”, a mix tape made with Okonma’s rap group Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. The mix tape garnered the young band of bold musicians a fair share of street cred, while their energetic live local shows gave way to a much larger fan base via the internet and word of mouth. TTC’s 2007 debut album titled Bastard, showcased Okonma’s individual skills as a rapper and producer. The brooding piano keys found in its opening title track, to its lyrically obscure arias like “French”, to the distorted cathartic closing number “Inglorious” – all this woven together to form a choppy patchwork body of messages about everything from Tyler’s bitterness towards an absentee father, his ambitions as a musician, the mall, growing up in the LA scene, chips, skateboarding, and an unforgiving portrayal of angst filled mental pictures voiced in a way not heard since the Marshall Mathers LP . And all this centered around loose plot elements of a mental therapy session between Tyler, and less than effective mental therapist, who serves as little more than a canvas for Tyler to spill his guts and grievances upon.
With the release of Yonkers, Tyler’s first single off the new album, we’re given a taste of the madness yet to come on May 10th, 2011. Its peculiar mid tempo beat, scratchy sound effects, and oddly placed taste of clear piano keys @ 1:37 on the track all serve as an interesting topping to Tyler’s helter-skelter lyrics, that begin with a contradiction “I’m a f- -kin walkin paradox- no I’m not” not long before veering into a few none-too-subtle jabs at a few faces in the mainstream scene. The official music video for the single only serves to further push the boundaries of the bizarre, what with it being a one set piece showcasing Tyler dining on a cockroach, a bit of vomiting, Tyler with demoniacally dilated eyes, and a pièce de résistance of Tyler committing suicide via hanging. It’s strange, and more than a little bit disturbing, but one can’t help but see a tiny bit of art and style to the whole thing. With Goblin fast approaching, it is only a matter of time before fans (and a fair number of concerned parents) start making noise about rap’s newest prodigy. For those interested, It comes highly recommended you check out the Creator’s freshmen album Bastard first, if for no other reason to perhaps gain a better understanding of the absurd artistry residing at Okonma’s core, and to get a firm introduction to the appealing absurdity that is OFWGKTA. You’ve been warned…