In some ways, the record operates as a love letter to the genre.
He proclaimed in a recent Instagram Live: “Shout out rap music – I love it.” While he warned fans in the build-up to ‘IGOR’ to not “go into this expecting a rap album”, it seems that Tyler has had a change of heart of late. His lyrics, too, have recently taken on a far more reflective and meditative tilt, touching upon heartbreak, self-reflection and sexual fluidity.Ī large part of ‘Call Me…’, however, sees him return to the craft that made him his name, a middle-finger-up to any fans chiding him for not rapping any more. While he made his name with brash, no-holds-barred bars that encapsulated youthful rage, Tyler’s last handful of releases – 2017’s ‘Flower Boy’ and its Grammy-winning avant-pop follow-up ‘IGOR’ – showed stark growth as the harsh beats of old were swapped out for sublime, deftly-delivered jazz, R&B, funk and neo-soul flourishes. How many would have predicted that the delinquent provocateur of California’s rap rabble-rousers Odd Future would blossom into one of hip-hop’s most dynamic figures? It’s true: Tyler’s journey – both creatively and personally – has been quite remarkable over the past decade.
As he puts it on the lounge-rap cut ‘MASSA’: “I’ve calmed down in front of cameras… I’m not that little boy y’all was introduced to at 19.”
The song is a snarled retort to so-called ‘cancel culture’ at once exhilarating and a little nostalgic, it displays a side of Tyler that we haven’t heard for a while. “I came a long way from my past,” Tyler, the Creator raps on ‘MANIFESTO’, the defiant standout from his sixth album ‘Call Me If You Get Lost’.
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