Explicit

Tyler the Creator

Published Oct 8, 2019, 9:00 AM

Tyler, the Creator spent three days this summer in Italy with Rick Rubin. At the end of the three days they sat down to record a conversation about Tyler's new album, "Igor". They play through some tracks off the album and Tyler even plays some piano.

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Pushkin. This song Yonkers is the track that put Tyler the Creator on the Map in two and eleven. It's the second single from Goblin, his first solo album. The song is stark, a sparse beat with a strange staccato sound similar to the shrieking Strings and Psycho. The song's lyrics are outrageous. The black and white video was equally controversial. It opens with Tyler sitting on a stool in front of a blank background, a cockroach passing between his hands. It ends with him standing on the same stool. He opens a video with hanging himself. A week after releasing the video, Tyler and his Odd Future crew were performing on Jimmy Fallon with the Roots wearing ski masks. It's still exciting to watch today, especially if you're into youthful displays of rebellion like I am. It's hard to believe something like this was actually on network television. Eight years, four albums, two TV shows, and one successful clothing line later, Tyler's spirit is still rebellious, only it's showing in new and highly creative ways. His new album Igor isn't controversial, but it's an anomaly and rap. Like most of his output, It's entirely self produced, but unlike the other records, there's hardly any rapping. Instead, Tyler sings a lot, and he opens this record with a mostly instrumental track that starts with a thirty second synth note. Igor dresses in bright and beautifully tailored suits and like Anna win tour as a blonde bowl cut and dark sunglasses. I really wasn't prepared for the sound of this record, even after the last one, flower Boy, which was also pretty ambitious when it first came out. But this might just be the strangest and most beautiful Tyler the Creator record yet. This is Broken Record Season three Liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Rick Rubin spent three days in Italy this summer with Tyler. At the end of the trip, they sat down a Rick's living room and listened to a few songs off the new album, analyzing each one. They started with Eager Steam instrumental opener you heard earlier, But first they talked about the heat temperatures across Europe. We're an all time high. I finally got a human level of sleep. I was dying. The night before was a hot night. It was I was dripping wet at three am, staring at a mosquito, kept whispering I'm gonna get you. I know him. We're cool now, this is crazy. You like it. We're in the woods. For those that don't know, we're in the middle of nowhere. It is no uber, it is no taxi. I have not seen another person aside from the people in this house. No TV. Three days, no TV. I think it's one downstairs. Don't think it's ever been turned on. It's no AC. But I kind of like that in this weird fetish way that said I really like being here. I don't know, it's for me. It's like a very good energy. Yeah, it's not much to worry about. No, like it's crazy. The first night I was like, oh, oh, what the fuck did I get into? Rick is crazy? What the And then I got some cookies and that fan and everything was okay. Talking about music, when you were at Shango La at the end of the project, you were kind of putting it together the final stages. I remember you telling me that the first song was gonna be an instrumental, and you had always had it as an instrumental, and then you kind of came up with a hook last minute fell this one? And how did the hook come about? I was with Uzy little USI very was just at the studio hanging. I'm working on this and I couldn't come up with words, but I had this melody. So I'm in there playing on the piano the melody and then he takes that melody. It just adds words and sings it right, and I'm like, just add it real quick, just lay that rough down for me, because your voice sounds good doing it. And that's the song. It's nothing deep, so cool. I think that's literally what it was. And I was like, that's all I need. Thank you. I didn't even know that was gonna make it. It just worked out so perfectly, you know what I mean? Absolutely? How important of the words? I like beat first, then melody, and then lyrics. It's Amy Winehouse songs, No Lie. She has a song called wake Up Alone, and man, I love that song for years. My cousin bought that album when it came out, and it wasn't up until maybe two years ago, twenty seventeen, where I realized what the lyrics were saying. Because I love the beat, love the chords, and I just love the melody and what she was doing, but I never paid attention to the lyrics. Yeah, I think everyone listens to different things. First, I noticed earlier downstairs when we were playing the disco stuff a song came in and he was like ooh, and it was just drums. It wasn't no chords, not a baseline, nothing, And I was like, oh, he listens to Grew first. He listens to drums and grew first. And I just something I picked up on and thought that was interesting. And me, I love good chords. Just it's songs I have that are horrible lyrically, like really bad, but I just like the notes in the background. So I listened to him and I love it. And and this beat is hard, these drums and this based on its great they messed together. And then I listened to the flow or the melody and the runs. Second, that's what really makes me mel Then I care about it's all based on the sound. That everything before you get to any sound is way before it's for me personally, that energy, that feeling, that sound, that's that's who you say. The sound of the lyrics mean more to you than what it's actually saying. Yeah, like jay Z for example, he knows how to rap on a beat. He knows how to hear a beat and say I shouldn't yell on this, or I shouldn't wrap like this on it. The way that this feels. This is how my vocal instrument could mesh on this perfectly. Where it's some people who hear a smooth beating like I'm gonna fucking yell on it. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna because they're just more thinking of saying and cool shit rather than making a good song. And that's how that's kind of me. I kind of focus on making a good song with cool structure rather than like, oh that verse was so even though I don't get me wrong, I don't want to seem like i'nna be a dismissive like care about lyrics and word blah blah blah. But it's just number three. It's just number three. Is there any music or artists you could think of that you've heard or listened to because of the lyrics? Yeah, you got people like Eminem, like Cassidy the rapper that stuff that I'm like, I wonder what pockets they're gonna wrap this in and what they're gonna say, and the punchlines and things like that, because Eminem was he picked some of the worst beats ever, even Ludicrous sometimes picked shitty beats, but their energy and their cool, witty lines is what made the songs cool. So they're an exception, you know, so where jay Z picked great beats. So that's what drew me in. And then like, oh his voice sounds tied over this. Oh that's what he's saying, you know. So okay, next one I'll play and then we talk about it after. Incredible. That shit is so good, it's incredible. My favorite part is happens once. It's when the harmony vocals do the different It's so beautiful, and the restraint in that being the best part and deciding I'm only gonna have it that one time. Well, this album is full of that because I just made each song has those moments. Oh that's my favorite part, and I'm like, yeah, it only comes once, but right after that is and someone else's a moment face. Even even on the intro, the I only have the choir come in once behind him, and like, it's a lot of stuff and I like shit like that. It's little details that gets me off and a lot of people don't listen to that stuff. A lot of people. Man, if you don't got the if you don't got the eight await the catchy hook, they're off it. But it's so much magic throughout the whole. I think even if people don't hear it subconsciously, it's something like something happens and I tell I tell fans like, hey, if you like it, and you see me in person and you know, I got a minute to say hi or whatever. I want you to articulate what you like about it. Don't just say I like it, No, hone in on what you like about it, because if you figure out specifically what you like about something, that'll help you understand other shit that you like and then weed out the shit you don't help you find other shit like that. Absolutely, you remember how that one came about, Like how did it work out? That diverse drops kind of in the middle of the song and breaks down like that. I remember right before I finish, and I was like, I need something to happen chord wise, I'm gonna keep saying I'd say chords so much it's annoying, But that's the shit that makes me lit. Oxygen water and chord progressions. It's fucking annoying. But I was like, I need something to take me there because the song didn't have a bridge, so I was like, I need to put something in the middle somewhere that just goes there. And I was like, fuck, the structure is already perfect. Maybe I could take one of those leaves and just fuck it up real quick. And that's literally what I did, and I yeah, that's how it happened. It's the song on the piano is easy. But I was just like, I'm gonna have four chords that just feels like a waterfall and then ramp it back to the original progression. So those chords are only moving around in the middle of one of the notes, if that makes sense. Yeah, you're gonna show me on the piano, so why are you there? I feel right there. That's regular. And then I went and it only happens once. Wow, And that's why it feels so whoa. It's so dramatic because most of the it's mostly like this, it's mostly just like regular line. So it's mostly just regular line. So me bringing that out of nowhere, it just makes you say, oh, I came. And then everything after that's just icing on the cage. Yeah, we'll be back with more Tyler the Creator after the break. We're back with more Tyler the Creator. Lyrics came last. Yeah, I made the skeleton of the beat, and while I let it play, I paced in my room and kind of came up with that. And I was like, damn, that's all I'm gonna say is you make my earthquation. Don't leave, it's my fault. That was it. And then in the middle it was a piano solo. But then I added Cardi on it because I just love his voice. And yeah, it was the lyric related something that was just going on in that moment. Or it was earthquake. Oh really corny enough. It was an earthquake, and I was like, damn, I like earthquake, earthquake. And I was like, oh, I say that with an F and a queue instead of the thh and the queue instead of earthquake, I say earthquake. So I was like, huh, And then I just started singing that and you make my earthquake, don't leave, it's my fault because of the fault line that earthquakes are on. Ah. So yeah, and like you shake me up, you be making me nervous because when everything is fucked up, I'm gonna need you when everything comes crumbling or whatever whatever. So cool, just simple, but yeah, so cool. It started with the chords. You wrote the chords first, and then the beat came after. Yeah, yeah, I just had those. It's super simple, super simple. It's a it's just it's just so that I interpolated where the guys like, I think I'm falling in love this time of thing. It's for real. And I was like, man, these chords are He made these really bullshit pop chords that I will usually hate. Yeah, sound cool. So I always had that in the back on my head. And then I found this drum loop. I was like, this is tight. It was only a second, so I kind of fucked with that to make it a full thing. And then I was like, oooh that one melody that guy did. Those chords were sick. So I figured those chords and added them, and I was like, man, I also like his melody. Fuck it. I'll just add it there just as a placement. And then the full song came and just was like, I'll just keep amazing. So did the did you have the vocal? The first vocal phrasing hook before you ever had the beat. It came with the piano pianos I had, so I had the song that I interpolated with the chords in that hook phrasing. It was just a song guy just already had and I liked it and I was like, this is cool. Then when I looped these drums and I was working on a beat and I was adding chords, I was like, oh, you know it will be tight the stuff from that one song. So then that's when I see that. So I see and they just want hand in hand and so cool. When that happens, it's cool. I just wanted to dance. My favorite part is to break down in the middle. That bridge is so sane, so good. That bridge is insane, so beautiful, so beautiful, and that's like number seven. That's bridge seven. Bro. I have six other versions because I was like, I need to perfect this bridge. It's two other bridges with salons on it and he singing back and forth and stuff. But I was like it's not perfect, And I was like, what do I want to do again? What world is this? Where is this living? Yes? I want to be in studio fifty four dancing of this, Yes, and I just want to hear these chords. Oh, I just want to hear these chords. I don't want to hear vocal, so I stripped it. That's why you have that, and it lets you breathe. Yeah, it really. It's spectacular when it comes in. Feel so good. The next one's like my favorite, like my fucking favorite. I love that so good. My favorite part is the again, the breakdown with the little hook and the loud snaps and then the beat, the new beat dropping after it. It's just like living and pretending. I breathe a lot on this album, Yeah, because of my like recording it, Like my asthma flares up randomly, so a lot of the things like I would actually breathe on, and then at some point I was like fuck it, I'm gonna just breathe on a lot. So igor steam. I think this one, I breathe on New Magic wand the end of What's Good like I just made it a thing. But that song, it's like the epitome of like uh I was in the mask off section is incredible with the rat but it still has the harmonies under it. That's my favorite. It's so and I'm oh gosh, it's so and it also feels like a vulnerable lyric in the context of this a song that doesn't feel like that at all. Yeah, it's just really like gets like real, like it feels like because a song feels like running out, it's like it's it's just some pop song, like it doesn't have me until that part. It's like, oh no, this song is about something like it's it's like you're spine and it gets emotional. Yeah, and it's un completely unexpected and I put the I reput the vocals from the first part under that just so oh those vocals have meaning to them too. It's yeah, all related. How do you decide to do the fake out ending like the stop and then the little breakdown extra piece? Uh, it just needed I just wanted some movement. I just wanted some movement, and I wanted to just have the roads just by itself so good, and I was like, I'll just bring the snaps here and then because I wanted it to die before those drums came in, and then drums so fucking hard, really interesting arrangement, like just the order of events that happened in the song or bro it's magic. Every five that it's something new, even the car sound that just goes through it here and there. It's like, I don't know, just a little little kinks that I like. We'll be back with more of Rix Conversation with Tyler the Creator after the break. We're back with more of Rix Conversation with Tyler the Creator in the current live show do you play? Do you mixing old songs with the new songs? Start with the majority of this album and that outfit wig and the suit and stuff, and then I switched in there like regular clothes for older stuff, which is like flower Boy, Cherry, Bob Wolf stuff, and then I do like two or other songs from this album at the end. It's a weird. It's figure outable, but I don't. I haven't figured out yet how to perfect how to do both, because I don't want to wear a wig and a suit when I'm doing Ship from three albums ago, you know, unless you also don't want to do only the new album yea, unless you change the way you do the old material to suit the new style. Yeah, And I've thought of that, and I'm like, but this world that I've built with this character that don't want to say the music doesn't match the shoes I'm wearing. Yeah. Yeah, so I was like, all, whatever, I'll just change it. But how would the character cover those songs if he was an artist and he wanted to do it, would take it would take away from those songs. That's the thing I don't want to hate going to shows where it's like, oh, they're kind of performing the song I love, but they want to be too creative, so oh, they're singing it a cappella with a cowbell and one guitar note. It's really fun listening to this. I love this album. It's good. It's fucking good. It's also the first album where I'm like really like when people were like, hey, the album's great, I know and thank you, and it's not an ego thing. It's like, I'm so proud of it. Yes, I put in so much effort and I love it and I know that it's good. You didn't have the same relation and trip to flower Boy. No. I think flower Boy is good and it's my best work thus far, just because it's an easy listen but it's so it's not born. It's just kind of tame to me and too good. Yeah, it's like of course you're gonna like it. It's nothing abrasive, it's nothing too weird about it. It's good songs and stuff. But I still feel like some of that stuff is a little niche, a little bit just did you feel it at the time or not at the time, a little bit, Like I was happy people loved it and stuff, but it was missing a lot of little things, Like it was mixed too clean and not in a bad way. It's supposed that I'm supposed to sound crisp and clean, but like it was missing my little tinks that I'm like itching to do. And I had to pull back and restrain myself because this is what the album was supposed to be. I love cinnamon, but you can't put it on your spaghetti. Yes, you know. So I made that, And because of that, I think that's why I made IGOR, because I was itching for I need this, I need distortion and an annoying bass and pitching fucking this is gonna come out of nowhere and all fucking change. Put eighteen Bridges on one song like I needed that, but still has some of the musical growth that we first saw on flower Boy. Yeah. Yeah, it's because you don't you don't go to you don't leave LA and go to New York and go back to LA with no knowledge. No, now you know how to wear a jacket because it was cold as fuck out there, And now you apply that whenever you gotta go jacket shopping, because you went to New York and know how to wear a fucking jacket. Now. Yes, So just because you know, just because I you know, flowerboys super clean, doesn't mean that I can't get dirty and crash a car into a fucking building. It's just that now I kind of know which car I could crash into a building, so I don't die. Yeah. Great, it's so funny here in the juxtaposition of the beautiful, melodious piano lines and the lyrics and the please don't shoot me down in the gunshots. Yeah, such a good buoye base combination. I love again. I love the hard shit pause, and I love the pretty shit. Now we're just trying to mix it together, just make it so much more interesting. Yeah, because you don't know what side you're on. Yeah, So the meshes like uh that one also is the most traditional rap structure where it's got a lot of verseus. You know, it's got a lot of verse words. Yes, this is the it's in the middle too, So it's like the that's the rapper one, that's the that's the listen to what I'm saying one. I'm I'm saying words on there and it's all specific and it's so that's why I so laid back, because it's like I'm more just talking, like observing that that one, I'm just looking like it sounds really also personal and intimate and real. Yeah, no, it doesn't sound like a performance. No the uh oh you're faking your man oh, take your hoodie off? Like it's every time I hear this song, I think of the specific moments of why I'm saying that. So it's and that's why it's not a performance. It's just just talking and I think it's it's good. That's a good song. How did that one come about? What do you do you remember about the process? That was first? So that's it was a song. I was listening to the song that I've kind of dealt with before, and I was like, man, I would do this differently. I would loop this part because this is a sweet spot. So I just looped it and came just made my own new song structure out of this other song that I sampled from and kind of built around it. Were you sampling a song of your own or it's this other song called Bound that I sampled it from that I like, I just had added the rough you some other fucking dangerous but that was part of a verse and then I kind of just kept repeating that and made it into the hook. Yeah, when did you decide that this was going to be the one that was going to have that this was gonna be tell the rap story, have something to say. Oh, well, it wasn't deliberate. It's just that when I made the beat I just end up rapping on it like that because that's what vocally felt right understood. And then the melodies and stuff where they are now is where I was like, this is where it feels right. Don't shoot me Dan. The boys a good like and I kind of kept it at that. They didn't want to add anymore. I was like, this is perfect, and it was asking to rap on like that song was asking for a verse. Yeah, and it I think it has so much more power because because it's the we're in the middle of the album and it's the first time we're hearing this many words, it really changes the way you hear it. You know, if this was if this was the sixth song of six rap songs, yeah, it wouldn't It wouldn't have much power. Yeah, No, it's even and like this album, like on I think I'm doing this rap but it's cool, and then I'll rap in the middle of Running of Time sort of, and then the real rap verse doesn't come until the end of New Magic One. It's a rap song, but the rap verse doesn't come till the end. So when you finally get to number seven and you get this full rap performance, not like perform like a real just rap song, like base level core hip hop, yea, it's like, oh, this is nice, but it's still in tune with the six songs before. It's sonically absolutely, it feels like it's when it comes up in the project. There's no feeling of what's this. It feels completely intertwined with the rest, and it's you get to you get to breathe a bit and just nod your head and like, yeah, I like it. Yeah, me too. It's really interesting to me that that you've been making music as long as you have, and it feels like it keeps getting better and it's very rare. Feels like so many artists best work is their first or first or second, and then more often than not, there's a decline and it feels like listening to your work, it's the opposite. And any idea how or why that is the case because I don't get stuck. I like new shit. I get inspired by stuff, and I hate the word inspire, but I get in this ship and I dive head first into it like I am if I had that cupcakeg Magnolia bro and I went back every like. I fall in love with shit, whether it's a color palette and a step like, I get into it. And I think, because me being so potent in something that's so different from the last, that's why you could differentiate my albums or errors or the way I was dressing at the time, or the approach to music. And I want to get better. Some people think they know it all. I want to get better. I've yet to make my great rap album like rap, I'm still like, I got to relearn how to rap. I'm teaching myself how to rap again, because I don't think I'm that good at it. That's not my favorite. What was the first record that you sang on? The first thing I sung on was Wolf the intro. The intro for Wolf was the first time. I do you remember feeling either like it felt dangerous because you hadn't done it before, or that you were particularly excited about it or particularly inspired by something to make you do it. Well, I've always wanted to sing, but my voice doesn't allow me to sing the way I want. And everyone's like, oh, deep voice, like you pitch it up as an excuse, but I don't want to sing like Barry White or fucking Johnny Cash or whoever else had a deep voice. I don't want to sound like that. That's not the tone of voice that I want to put on the music bad that I'm laying for it. So it's something I always wanted to do, but I just never went for it until I needed vocals on songs. So I would laid out refs for people, and when they wouldn't sing it or didn't work out, I would be like, I like this idea so much that I'm okay with putting it out like this. I perfect it as much as I can, but I want this out in the world. So the intro to Wolf answer off Wolf, that's number six forty eight. I sung a bit campfire things like that, like and it felt great. It was cool ideas, and I just kept doing it and kept doing it because I loved it. I would trade to be able to sing well over wrapping any day. So good, thank you for this, thank you for the music, thank you for making great music. Thank you, and you're welcome. It's good. I'm happy that I can put something out like this in the climate right now and people are responsive to it in a positive way, and I love it. I absolutely adore this album. So when people are like, hey, what do you do? I will give them this first. Yeah. If I couldn't just say hey, I make stuff, they're like, no, I need specifics, I would give them this. Beautiful Thanks to Tyler the Creator for hanging out with Rick in Italy for a few days to talk about the album. Also special thanks to Leonardo Beccafici aka Fresco for engineering. On the next episode, Bruce had them talks with Yola about her new album walk Through Fire and being produced by Dan Arbach of The Black Keys. Broken record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell and Mel Lavelle for Pushkin Industries. Visit Broken Record podcast dot com for playlists from every episode, and follow us on Instagram at The Broken Record pod Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richard.

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