The guy came in with a golf mask, some verses that cut like rusty razors, and an attitude of: here I am, what are you going to do about it? He sat down, struck up an almost absurd conversation, looked them in the eye and dropped the microphone. He would arrive in the jungle and soon be crowned king.
Tyler Gregory Okonma, better known as Tyler, The Creator, didn’t knock on the hip-hop door: he kicked it in, doused it with gasoline and set it on fire while laughing. Today, that same Odd Future problem child is a cultural titan. A designer of sound worlds and a poet of “fuck it” turned philosophy.
It was 2009, rap smelled of corporate, gold chains and repeated formulas. T-Pain had turned vocal distortion into currency, and everyone from Kanye (808s & Heartbreak) to Lil Wayne (Tha Carter III) was playing with robotic sounds and catchy melodies. Songs like the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” or “I Gotta Felling” dominated radio. They were party anthems, but with lyrics that said nothing.
Then they came along -Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA)-, a pack of misfits led by Tyler. Their rhymes were violent, absurd, almost cartoonish, but no one could ignore them. They recorded in garages, edited their own videos and made fun of everything: commercial rap, morals, critics; they were punk-rap in its purest form. Radical wasn’t just a word, it was their DNA.
Tyler was releasing records like “Goblin” with raw productions, beats that sounded like distorted nightmares and lyrics that played between the terrifying and the comical. “I’m fucking walking paradox,” he rapped, and it was true. He was the clown and the monster, the genius and the freak in the park. The industry didn’t know whether to give him a Grammy or call security.
But Tyler was never just shock value. Behind the chaos, there was a songwriter obsessed with details. “Wolf” was his first turn: brooding guitars, stories of twisted loves and a narrative that turned his albums into mental movies. Then came “Cherry Bomb”, where jazz collided with noise, and rap became a party inside a volcano.
The big leap came with “Flower Boy”. Here, he took off his mask -literally and figuratively- and showed his vulnerability: the loneliness, the bisexuality, the doubts. The beats were no longer harsh; they were warm LA sunsets. “911 / Mr. Lonely” sounded like a muffled scream in a sports car. Critics, who once saw him as an enfant terrible, now called him a visionary.
He not only dominates the studios; he also dominates the catwalks. His brand GOLF le FLEUR is the extension of his world: pastel colors, flowers, kitsch turned high fashion. He is the modern dandy, the one who mixes Vans with Louis Vuitton suits and makes it look natural.
In music, his production is cinematic. Stevie Wonder samples, string arrangements that would make Bach weep, and grooves that smell like old vinyl. “IGOR”, his masterpiece, is a breakup album that sounds like a soap opera produced by Pharrell and Daft Punk. “EARFQUAKE” is an emotional earthquake, and ‘A BOY IS A GUN’ is pure poetry about toxic love.
Now, Tyler sells out Coachella, designs shoes, skateboards in music videos and raps like the world is ending tomorrow. The same guy who used to make songs about murder now writes about “miss you, I love you” with the same brutal honesty because he has understood that monsters and flowers grow from the same soil.
By: Yeema Martinez Yee
Translated by Aliani Rojas Fernandez
- VIII Scientific Conference on Nutrition concludes in Holguin - 29 de May de 2025
- Pope Leo XIV calls for an end to the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East - 29 de May de 2025
- Agricultural insurance to benefit food production in Holguin - 29 de May de 2025