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Many rappers are inspired to create music by the struggles of race in the U.S. and the socio-economic issues associated with said struggles. They use their identity and life's story to convey their opinions on various subject matters express themselves as individuals. This is also true of Tyler, the Creator. Much of Tyler's lyrics are rooted in individual identity as well as language and race. He uses AAVE and rap to express his feelings about major social issues which is common of rapper and hip-hop artists. However, Tyler has much more to bring to the table in terms of how his identity is to be perceived by others. Tyler speaks in many of his songs about his childhood and how he develops himself relative to his younger self. The music Tyler creates rarely expresses how his being African-American has to do with anything but does not deny it wholly either. 

Early Life

Tyler Gregory Okonma, better known by his stage name Tyler, the Creator, is a young African American rapper, who began making music with rap group Odd Future core members, Earl Sweatshirt, Left Brain, and Hodgy Beats. (Jefferies, 1) Tyler was born in March 26th, 1991 to a mother of mixed African American and European Canadian descent. Tyler's father, whom he never met according to his first solo mixtape release Bastard, was of West African descent, specifically Igbo. (2) Supposedly around age 14 he taught himself how to play piano. Tyler got his creative rap name from a MySpace page he used to spread some of his creative projects. (Kimmel, 3) He didn't choose his name it more just became what he was called by fans. 

In 2011, Okonma started the clothing company Golf Wang. Then in 2012, he began hosting an annual music festival named the Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival. (6) He created his own streaming service app named Golf Media; it ran between 2015 to 2018 and contained original scripted series from Okonma himself and the Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival was annually streamed on the service. Okonma has identified as an agnostic atheist and has had explicitly anti-religious lyrics in his music on the albums Bastard and Goblin. (Kershaw, 7) He has worked at various jobs such as Starbucks for two years and Fedex. (8) As of 2018 Tyler is devoted to his music full time with his most recent single release Potato Salad (2018) featuring A$AP Rocky. 

Musical Career

Tyler started out by founding Odd Future, a collective rap group that started in 2007 with other founding members Left Brain, Casey Veggies, and Hodgy. As Odd Future with his fellow rappers, they released The Odd Future Mixtape in November of 2008, and Tyler released his solo mixtape Bastard later on in December 2009. By 2011, Odd Future had broken up and Tyler released his first solo album, Goblin, which was met with mild critical success. Evan Rytlewski of The A.V. Club said, "Brash and unwieldy as it seems on the surface, Goblin is a deliberately created work of art, one of the densest and most provocative statements that independent rap has produced in years." (Rytlewski 7) 

After in 2013 Tyler released his next major album Wolf. Wolf was a very interesting project which Tyler started to take a more personable approach with this music. HipHopDX named it one of the top 25 albums of 2013. Their review stated, "Wolf was Tyler's most grown up effort to date. Developing into a fully realized production mastermind, he somehow tied a summer camp story in with his usual themes of relationships and the struggles of fame, not to mention the ghetto's crack epidemic and bullying leading to school shootings." (4)

In 2015 Tyler debuted with his next big album Cherry Bomb. Cherry Bomb lead with similar success to Goblin. Cherry bomb wasn't very personal to Tyler's own life as much as his previous album. Tyler's next big album Flower Boy (2017) would be greatest hit so far. Much of Tyler's conflict with identity is expressed within this album. It's definitely a more personal approach than his other works with the exception of Wolf. As of 2018, Tyler is releasing various singles such as Potato Salad, Peach Fuzz, and 435.

How Tyler's Unique Use of Genre Conveys Thoughts

According to his official Wikipidia page, Tyler, The Creator is classified as "alternative hip-hop," although I think this can be sort of misleading. Tyler uses many different genres to express different thoughts and emotions. He uses hard gangster rap (e.g. Geto Boys, Compton's Most Wanted) and experimental beats in his album Goblin (2011), then later gives softer tones of smooth jazz and soul in his album Flower Boy (2017). These two albums drastically contrast in tone, mood and subject matter. Another matter is that Flower Boy is much more personal to Tyler's life than Goblin. It represents much more of his personal life. He can fluctuate between his aggressive side and his softer side. I will detail more about genre and how it relates to my overall argument in Findings and Discussion: Discussion/Reflective Thoughts.