NEXT Album Review

Tyler, the creator - “Call me if you get lost”

“Whatever your shit is, man, do it

Whatever bring you that immense joy, do that, that's your luxury

The greatest thing that ever happened to me was

Bein' damn near twenty and leavin' Los Angeles for the first time

I got out my bubble, my eyes, just wide” 

―Tyler, The Creator (“MASSA”)

Writing, as a stationary art, is impossible to do when you’re on the move. Stillness, during the lockdown period of the pandemic, was an ideal time to write, except, the world was ending all around us.

Respect to all who could, to all who did and are still working consistently, but for me, to write anything music related was like writing album reviews within the eye of a hurricane. Since being vaccinated, I’ve felt more inspired to write, but the stillness has been stolen in ways that’s hard to describe. 

I intended to review Tyler, The Creator’s CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST for the newsletter this week, but, unfortunately, this is the week Vacay and I are in Los Angeles, moving around like mad men seeing friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and building new relationships for Rap Portraits. 

I was in Los Angeles in 2019, to meet with Ty Baidson to conduct the interviews that eventually became the five-part Colture Playbook series. So for me, L.A. is where I arrive with nothing and leave with gold. So it’s been constant motion for us from the second our planes landed searching for caverns to mine. 

What little I heard, CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST is a bridge between the classic Gangsta Grillz mixtapes that made DJ Drama and Don Cannon heroes of my adolescence and the high art world-building albums that Tyler is renowned for creating.

Album reviews by three of my favorite journalists, Dylan Green, Craig Jenkins and Paul Thompson are exceptionally well-written and will appease anyone looking for an earnest, thoughtful, and critical opinion of the music and Tyler’s current status in the world of rap. 

Personally, after hearing the first seven records, instead of being a disruptive lyricist, there’s an easiness to Tyler’s rapping that’s concentrated, but loose. The project sounds like a vacation on a yacht somewhere in Paris. He is a man that’s not only in motion, but cruising, enjoying rewards from a decade of innovative chaos. 

He has become a master of contrast. Able to be braggadocious and congratulatory. Triumphant, yet contains the sincerity of an underdog. He’s always been a multi-dimensional man, but mature has been a word used to describe this latest offering. The boy who ate the roach is now a man of great success. He's earned a position in music that most only dream of. And he did it his way. 

Although I work as a freelancer, not having a job as a music journalist alleviates the need to always have an opinion about an album, a song, an artist. Most days I feel like I internalize music rather than critique it. 

I want to do with Rap Portraits what Tyler did with Odd Future. Doing that means I won’t always be in the space to review the music. But as the poet laureate Earl Sweatshirt once said, “I've been living what I wrote.”

So I hope anyone who has been reading this understand, we survived the end of the world. Thus we are recreating the rules. Sometimes you have to break them to know which rules to follow. 

There’s no review this week, but play the album, and more than that, reflect on where Tyler, The Creator is and how he got there. 

To anyone who read all this, stay dangerous. And if you’re in L.A, call me.  

Paul Thompson’s Review

Craig Jenkins Review

Dylan Green: How Tyler, The Creator Crafted His Own Cinematic Universe