Tyler, The Creator

Tyler, The Creator's second album has been met with mostly positive critical acclaim. Slant Magazine praised “Tyler's snappy lexicon and accomplished musicianship” for ensuring that 'Goblin' is “a masterpiece for those capable of stomaching it.” HipHopDX stated that the record “achieves an engrossing dystopian vision... that refuses to compromise.” The NME declared him “a rare talent – a brutally funny motherfucker with an imagination that squirms like a tub of maggots, old enough to know that words leave bruises but still young enough not to give a fuck about the consequences.”

It's the language, however, which has since caused a furore, with the LA Times complaining that “so much ego-maniacal nihilism, while fascinating and at times revolutionary, wears thin very quickly". The Guardian also declared it “a self-defeating waste of talent,” concluding that it's “not an odd future but the ghost of hip-hop bullshit past.” The Fader even tallied up over 200 uses of the word “fuck” on the album, recorded 70 mentions of “bitch,” over 30 of the word “dick,” and, perhaps most depressingly, “faggot” is deployed at least nine times. 

Sara Quin of Canadian indie popsters Tegan and Sara added to the controversy, by deciding to air her grievances about the rapper on the band's blog, demanding that his “misogynistic and homophobic ranting and raving result in meaningful repercussions in the entertainment industry.” She continued that whilst his “sickening rhetoric” 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.” Quin also implied that Tyler was somehow exempt from criticism for fear from his detractors of being labelled racist.

“I’ve asked myself a thousand times why this is pushing me over the edge. Maybe it’s the access to him (his grotesque twitter, etc.). Maybe it’s because I’m a human being, both a girl and a lesbian. Maybe it’s because my mom has spent her whole adult life working with teenage girls who were victims of sexual assault. Maybe it’s because in this case I don’t think race or class actually has anything to do with his hateful message but has EVERYTHING to do with why everyone refuses to admonish him for that message.”

No sooner had Tyler tweeted his retort (“If Tegan And Sara Need Some Hard Dick, Hit Me Up!”), GLAAD waded into the debate, commending Sara for her rant and pointing out that despite denying allegations of homophobia, “his Twitter feed and rhymes are rampant with anti-gay slurs and references... Tyler’s attempts to be provocative as well as his indifference towards the consequences of his actions are irresponsible." GLAAD then referred to an earlier debate over rapper Lil B's lyrics, in which they warned that “…words matter. Slurs have the power to fuel intolerance.”

Just as Eminem's lyrics were scrutinised for causing similar outrage a decade ago, resulting in gay rights campaigners demonstrating outside his shows and a students' union in Sheffield banning his music completely, many fans feel that those critical of his vitriolic outbursts are failing to separate the author from the work of fiction.

“Hey, don’t do anything that I say in this song, okay? It’s fucking fiction. If anything happens don't fucking blame me, White America,” he announces on 'Radicals', which could easily be perceived as a sort of disclaimer. Just as Slim Shady was created as an abhorrent alter ego through which spite and disgust could be articulated, is Tyler also playing an intentionally psychotic character? After all, much of the venomous dialogue purports to be an exchange between Tyler and a therapist, or possibly his own conscience. He isn't actually advocating this hated or encouraging anyone to emulate it.

Of course it's debatable to what extent Tyler is 'trolling' or delivering a parody, and the lyrical content is rife with gratuitous violence. Lines such as “Rape a pregnant bitch and tell my friends I had a threesome...” and “Go 'head admit it faggot, this shit is tighter then butt rape...” may leave a sense of disgust, but is it worse than the violently homophobic lyrics that Sizzla, Beenie Man and Insane Clown Posse have confronted us with in the past? Surely if you're going to accuse him of homophobia, you'd also have to assume he's a psychopath, a rapist and a serial killer? In fact, you'd also have to say he endorses arson, necrophilia and cannibalism. So are we guilty of taking songwriting too literally here? I mean, Ice T didn't actually kill any cops, right? Did Johnny Cash really shoot that man in Reno? Should Nick Cave be prosecuted for all those murders? Sure, some of the narratives do sound juvenile, but then it was written during his adolescence. As a result, much of it is self-deprecating, defensive and paranoid. Much time is taken up playing “Xbox in piles full of wet socks," poking girls on Facebook, incessantly masturbating and fantasising about “stabbing Bruno Mars in his god-damn oesophagus.”

But is this all fiction? Steve Albini, on an online forum, has revealed he encountered the Odd Future collective on an airport shuttle in Barcelona. "They piled in," he writes, "niggering everything in sight, motherfucking the driver, boasting into the air unbidden about getting their dicks sucked and calling everyone in the area a faggot. Then one of them lit a joint (or a pipe, I didn't look) and told the driver to shut the fuck up nigger and smoked it anyway. Interspersed with McDonalds requests were shouted boasts about how often they masturbated and fucked bitches nigger and got paid like a motherfucker fifty grand like a motherfucker."

Albini does go on to make some very relevant points. 

"I am well aware, thanks, that good people can make ugly art and that ugly people can make good art. Ultimately the function of art is to express something and move an idea from one person to another, and the tools of that can include revulsion and discomfort. Having been in a few bands myself, thanks, I know that the uninitiated can mistake these devices as windows into the soul of the creator. Ultimately they are, of course, but necessarily in the crude autobiographical way they are often interpreted." He concludes, however, that "they go out of their way to make it clear that this is not just a case of regular people making music about assholes, but assholes making music about being assholes."

Tyler's response? "Me Nor Anyone i Know In My Age Group Know Who You Are, Old Ass. Surprised You Knew how To Use A Computer. And What's Good With RAPEMAN?"

Tyler had also retaliated in an NME interview, attacking his critics for failing to listen to the “word play or the patterns we use” or the context in which they're used. “A lot of people take stuff too seriously. So some of the time it's actually for them, my subconscious doing it on purpose, just to piss them off... It's not our fault if they're fucking dumb enough to believe this shit...”

He concludes: “I'm not homophobic. I just think faggot hits and hurts people. It hits. And gay just means you're stupid.”

"They don't get it 'cause it's not made for them," raps Tyler on one track. Maybe that's it? I daresay that predominantly white, liberal-minded rock critics are not the target demographic here. Maybe we just don't “get it.” Whether he's a parody or a 'troll', it's clearly a deliberately abrasive and confrontational album, but given that the Odd Future collective have a lesbian member, should we all accept that 'faggot' is used as street slang, re-appropriated from those who use it in aderogatory manner towards homosexuals in particular? Is it all just tired sensationalism? Most importantly, is it actually OK to like this record?