Future Music Pioneers: Tyler the Creator

Insights May 21st, 2019

In Future Music Pioneers: Tyler the Creator we look at one of the artists that brought together incredible people like Earl Sweatshirt and Frank Ocean with the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA) crew. We’ll call them Odd Future, and we’ll call him TYLER THE CREATOR.
His music blends soul and funk sensibilities with a new flow (and killer vocal presence) alongside electronica-tinged beats. Here we see somewhat of a musical timeline that’s as much mayhem as it is unbridled creativity and freedom.

Odd Future – “Oldie”

She (feat. Frank Ocean)

Yonkers

Tyler, The Creator: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Tyler, The Creator’s Tiny Desk performance was a first for many reasons. It was the Los Angeles rapper’s first time performing at our offices, but moreover, it was the Tiny Desk’s first nighttime performance, a special request from Tyler and his team in order to professionally light the “stage” themselves.
Members of Tyler’s lighting crew came to the office a day before to set it up, eventually bathing him and his band in shades of fuchsia, orange and blue — one for each song — during the early evening show. Flower Boy, Tyler’s latest album, is much like this Tiny Desk performance; a surprising departure from the expected.
Four albums in, he has matured as a producer, rapper and human being. Often equated to hip-hop’s class clown, the 26-year-old peels back his own mask of immaturity to reveal a young adult grappling with anxiety, fear and uncertainty of self.