Last year I sat through a blogger and A&R roundtable organized by one of the majors in London. In between talk of “organic artist growth” and “breakout singles” The name of the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, and more specifically Tyler, The Creator‘s ‘Yonkers‘ video, came up several times as the label people seemed genuinely baffled by the success the collective were enjoying and the way they had gone about it.
Then in May he followed this up with his first non-independently released album ‘Goblin‘ acting as a metaphorical punch to the stomach. In between persistent arguments with his inner voices, tongue-in-cheek suggestions that we “kill people, burn shit, fuck school” and general disclaimers to his position as hip hops posterchild Tyler spits some of the best venom since Eminem’s debut album.
Cole found himself asking “Is ‘Goblin’ a comedy album? I still don’t know. Tracks like “Yonkers” are dark, featuring samples that seem to be pulled from horror films. The rhymes constantly reference murder and explicit sex, and flow slowly as if they were first written to be high school poems. The album confuses me to no end, and I can’t stop listening to it“.
TRACKS:
Tyler The Creator – She (feat. Frank Ocean)
