It’s not an unfamiliar story: an indie darling making it big and their content suddenly shifting from the relatable to the aspirational. Tyler remains the lonely misanthrope that arguably changed the face of rap - just a lot wealthier and wiser. “One minute, it’s a beautiful scene / Then it probably end with me bein’ took off, woah-oh,” he croons. It’s still unrequited love that haunts him, but he’s no longer in a rage. YoungBoy sounds as pleasant as ever while Tyler’s brooding romanticism finds itself confronting his own success. The production is signature Tyler, bright and ebullient, reminiscent of golden-era R&B. On “Wusyaname” YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Ty Dolla $ign show up like the real life NBA stars in Space Jam, cavorting with colorful creatures that defy physics. The rapper’s signature self-awareness has matured into some of the more compelling rap music being made today, and as such Call Me If You Get Lost proves to be Tyler’s best effort to date. But it’s hard to stay mad when, as Tyler reminds us on “Corso,” you have “other-other-other-other” homes (“That’s my AKA / Hurricane-proof all the views, shit like ‘A Bay Bay,’ ” he continues). On “Manifesto” he raps, “I was canceled before canceled was with Twitter fingers,” possibly referencing the protests outside of early Odd Future performances, the open letter penned by Sara Quinn of Tegan and Sara, or his banishment from the United Kingdom. Tyler’s latest, Call Me If You Get Lost, contends with the dual-edged sword of growing up in the public eye. His career is a blueprint for internet-bred fame, making the now 30-year-old musician something of an elder statesman in the game.Īll of which isn’t to say there weren’t growing pains. But, as the story goes, Tyler has achieved those peaks and more. They seemed outlandish for the ascendant star, fresh from jumping on an unsuspecting Jimmy Fallon’s back during Odd Future’s live TV debut. CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST, though, is a chance to see if they can recognize rap greatness once it has kicked their door in.It certainly must feel good to say “I told you so.” Back in 2011, a then 20-year-old Tyler, the Creator routinely took to social media to profess a slate of ambitious goals. Giving the Grammy the benefit of the doubt, maybe they wanted to reward all the great rapping he’d done until that point. “WILSHIRE” is potentially best described as an epic poem. And then there’s “RUNITUP,” which features a crunk-style background chant, and “LEMONHEAD,” which has the energy of Trap or Die-era Jeezy. The vibes across the album are a disparate combination of sounds Tyler enjoys (and can make)-boom-bap revival (“CORSO,” “LUMBERJACK”), ’90s R&B (“WUSYANAME”), gentle soul samples as a backdrop for vivid lyricism in the Griselda mold (“SIR BAUDELAIRE,” “HOT WIND BLOWS”), and lovers rock (“I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE”). Tyler made an aesthetic choice to frame CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST with interjections of shit-talking from DJ Drama, founder of one of 2000s rap’s most storied institutions, the Gangsta Grillz mixtape franchise. The focus here is very clearly hip-hop from the outset. Tyler superfans will remember that the MC was notoriously peeved at his categoric inclusion-and eventual victory-in the 2020 Grammys’ Best Rap Album category for his pop-oriented IGOR. But in this case, an exceptionally great one. But across CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST, the man once known as Wolf Haley is just a guy who likes to rock ice and collect stamps on his passport, who might whisper into your significant other’s ear while you’re in the restroom. The Los Angeles-hailing MC, and onetime nucleus of the culture-shifting Odd Future collective, made a name for himself as a preternaturally talented MC whose impeccable taste in streetwear and calls to “kill people, burn shit, fuck school” perfectly encapsulated the angst of his generation. There’s a handful of eyebrow-raising verses across Tyler, The Creator’s CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST-particularly those from 42 Dugg, Lil Uzi Vert, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Pharrell, and Lil Wayne-but none of the aforementioned are as surprising as the ones Tyler delivers himself.
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