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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:12]
B
Welcome, everyone, to Last Song Standing. I'm Cole Kushna.
- [00:14]
A
And I'm Charles Holmes. And today we're back with our fifth season. The artist may change, but our task stays the same. On this show, Cole and I argue our way through an artist's entire catalog in order to crown their single greatest song of all time, AKA the Last Song Standing.
- [00:30]
B
In past seasons, we've covered Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, Outkast, and most recently, we switched things up and debated the best album of the 21st century so far, ultimately crowning the greatest project of the last 25 years.
- [00:44]
A
But today, the LWS boys begin a new journey. A journey into the discography of one of the most talented and at times controversial artists of the modern era, Tyler the creator. Can you feel that fire? You make my earthquake Turn this shit down Turn this shit up. I don't consent. Cole, bro, it's been so long in person. How have you been?
- [01:12]
B
Beautiful. Charles, it's always good to see you fresh fit on.
- [01:15]
A
Come on.
- [01:15]
B
You always got the fresh fade.
- [01:16]
A
I had to. You don't even want to know how much the rise in gas prices, economy has affected the haircut. The fade in la, it's fucking. It's bonkers. But I do have news for you.
- [01:28]
B
Oh, okay.
- [01:28]
A
I don't know if you've noticed, I'm a little bit more Zen. Guess what? I've been. Been dabbling into some transcendental meditation.
- [01:36]
B
Shut up.
- [01:37]
A
I kid you not, bro. I'm doing 20 minutes every day. I'm trying to get it up to two times a day.
- [01:42]
B
Dude, that's beautiful. That's inspiring.
- [01:44]
A
I was reading David Lynch's book on it, you know, watching some YouTube videos. Really getting in there, bro.
- [01:49]
B
Dude, do you do it with music or just silence?
- [01:51]
A
I. I sit in silence. I have a. I have a little keyword that kind of like, helps me, like, not connected to anything, but kind of like hone in, let my mind roam and just like, kind of get into the unified field of the. Of existence.
- [02:06]
B
Bro, can you. Can you share the key word or is that private?
- [02:10]
A
That is. That's private. It's not that important. But I was just like, I. I've singled out on one. A lot of people are like, you should go to a transcendental center. Once I have time to do that, I will.
- [02:20]
B
Ye.
- [02:21]
A
What? I'm feeling good, bro. My mind is expanding.
- [02:26]
B
You only look great.
- [02:27]
A
Thank you.
- [02:27]
B
I'm very excited to start this journey. Would you say Tyler, the creator's music puts you in a transcendental Meditative state.
- [02:34]
A
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely not. Like, I was like, there were times when I was about to meditate and I had been listening to Tyler and I had to shut. I had to put on some, like, Fiona Apple. Like, I really just had to be like. Especially the early albums we're talking about, very aggressive, and I'm like, this is not putting me in a great mental space.
- [02:55]
B
All right, well, Tyler the creator, our journey begins here.
- [02:59]
A
Yep.
- [03:00]
B
Curious, what is your relationship to Tyler the Creator's music?
- [03:04]
A
Complicated.
- [03:05]
B
Okay.
- [03:05]
A
We are around the same age, and I would say Tyler is one of those artists where I was there from the beginning in a similar way that, like, I was there for Kanye west or a Childish Gambino or any of these other artists that have defined the 21st century. I remember being there for Tyler. I remember Bastard. I remember the stuff that happened before Bastard. I remember them Odd Future Haji beats, all of them. Going to the Jimmy Fallon show, the Free Earl shit. And. And I think my relationship with Tyler has changed as I've gotten older and as he's gotten older. But you're obviously a Tyler fan. Odd Future fan. You've done seasons on Tyler, Frank, Ocean, but I have the feeling you went back.
- [03:54]
B
Yeah. So this is. I've talked about this many times on the show, but this is when my Black Hole started. Exactly. When Tyler was popping off is when I went to college for classical music and just obsessed over classical music and kind of shut off the rest of the world out of survival, because I would have dropped out if I didn't do that. So I have gone back to the early work. I experienced Tyler in real time, starting with Cherry Bomb, Flower Boy era.
- [04:19]
A
Oh, shit.
- [04:20]
B
So, yeah, I missed the early stuff, aside from, like, a Yonkers, which of course, was just unavoidable. But I didn't put on a full Tyler album until the Black Hole ended around Cherry Bomb. So going back to the old stuff, having not experienced it, which we're going to talk a lot about today, is interesting in so many ways. And also, I was. I think I would have been too old. I know, like, for sure, if I were in high school when Tyler came out, I would have been absolutely obsessed.
- [04:51]
A
Like, so I was in high school and I was not obsessed. I was.
- [04:53]
B
Okay, interesting.
- [04:54]
A
What the fuck is this? But I want to ask, why Tyler? Because we had debated what artists to, like, hone in on this season, and Tyler had kind of been an artist that had been on the bubble for us for a couple seasons now, where we're like, is it Time. Is it time? Is it time? And then I think it got to the point where I'm like, it's definitely time.
- [05:17]
B
Yeah. Because post chromacopia, I think, is. To me, chromacopia, musically, artistically, is kind of peak Tyler, whether it's your favorite or not, whatever, but I think
- [05:28]
A
the
- [05:28]
B
latter half of his career as we've now experienced it from, I would say, Flower Boy on, you can kind of make the case. Cherry Bomb might be in there a little bit. We've had enough of this, for lack of a better term, like new Tyler, the evolved Tyler, to where we can now equally balance the two sides of his career. And I think, for me, what's so interesting about his career is that he is. We've essentially grown up with him. You know, I think it was Earl Sweatshirt that said, like, on Future got famous off the rough drafts and meaning that they're the first things they ever created, we get to hear.
- [06:03]
A
Yeah.
- [06:04]
B
And so with Tyler, especially because he's dropped so consistently, essentially, up until recently, every two years, we've get a new. We've gotten a new Tyler, the creator project. His growth has been incremental. It's not like he went away for five years and then came back with a new sound and a matured, evolved style. No, we actually. We can actually track it every two years over the course of these albums. So I think for a show like this is going to be incredibly interesting, especially because we're going to go in chronological order.
- [06:32]
A
Is this the first time. This is the first time ever we're doing a chronological order season. And I think we did that because, to your point, because the growth is so incremental, it makes sense to pair albums like Bastard and Goblin together. Because almost in the same way that Earl Sweatshirt is saying we got famous off our rough drafts, you can hear in certain songs off these albums the ideas that would be important to Tyler. And slowly over the career, it's him shedding the things that no longer serve him and almost just like sharpening the knife. And they're like. I think the songs that we pick on each of these albums, a lot of it we're gonna pick because not only were they the best songs and best ideas, but they pointed towards where Tyler would end up going.
- [07:24]
B
And that's what's we'll talk about a lot this season. That's what's fascinating about him, though, specifically as an artist. We're gonna listen to a lot of the early stuff today on this episode. Tyler's vision has not changed. Like you put on songs off of Chromacopia, and you can create a. It's a direct through line back to Bastard in terms of, like, instrumentation chord progressions, like, obviously unrefined on Bastard. But the vision has been there from day one. It was almost like he had to catch up to his own vision. He had to sharpen his sword, to use your metaphor, to make the songs that were in his head. But the vision has stayed the same. Same with his, like, clothing. You know, like, the way he was dressing back then. In terms of, like, color, you know, he's gotten more refined, but, like, in terms of his color palettes, all of that stuff was, like, pretty well established from day one. It was just him getting more and more developed and evolved as an artist to actually, like, fulfill what was, I imagine, in his head since he was a teenager.
- [08:21]
A
Even the narrative of talking about his father and sexuality, alienation. And you realize, like, oh, I think the best artist, whether you're a director or a screenwriter or a rapper or a singer, have a couple thematic ideas that they keep returning to. And the more that you listen or view their work, it shows itself. And you do not have to look far with Tyler. You're just like, the way he's talking about his father on Bastard versus something like. Chromacopia is different, but those feelings are still there, which I think is just like. That is the mark of a good artist. And to bring us back to the original question, why you do a whole season on Tyler, the creator?
- [09:06]
B
Yeah. We shall shout out Justin. Justin.
- [09:09]
C
Producer Justin's in the house as the resident old head. Even though we're roughly the same age, I still get to take that mantle as someone who did experience Tyler in real time. I could tell you that a lot of my old head friends were fucking scared of this guy.
- [09:25]
B
Oh, really?
- [09:26]
C
At the time, yeah.
- [09:27]
B
Scared. Why?
- [09:28]
C
Got this young kid coming up, I don't know.
- [09:31]
A
Kill people?
- [09:33]
B
You mean, like, literally scared?
- [09:35]
C
No, not. No, not like backrooms, obsession, scared. Right. No, but they were. They found him to be a threat to, like, what was, like, real hip hop, which is so funny considering where he ended up. But I think we're going to, like, charge that trajectory over the course of the next handful of episodes.
- [09:54]
B
Are you a fan of Tyler personally?
- [09:55]
C
I am. I am.
- [09:57]
B
Were you a fan, like, Odd Future Days or Later for Odd Future?
- [10:01]
C
I was a big Earl head, right. And I think that's, like, the old heads were like, earl, this kid can, uh. Tyler had a lot of star potential right away, so I was Very. I was very open to Tyler. I was very Tyler curious. Uh, but I. It took me a little bit to, like, fully come around on, like, this guy's really got something.
- [10:25]
A
Yeah, Tyler was definitely the biggest star, but I think artistically, Earl and Frank were more fully formed, and. And that's also what I find interesting. Tyler is a master at having a vision, and even when necessarily like, his voice in terms of what he wants to do with it, melodically or lyrically, isn't getting there. He had something that a lot of other members of Odd Future didn't, which is like, I can basically take my vision and imprint it on the world. And even if you don't like it, it is so stark and so in your face, you're gonna have to contend with it. And that's why I think we're talking about any of. Because it does take that type of singular vision from a leader to be like, hey, yo, everybody, come on. If you follow me, I'll at least knock down the door. Right, but before we get to that, do you want to remind all of our listeners about, you know, the premise, the rules of Last Long Standing?
- [11:22]
B
All right, so remember, the goal of this show is to determine Tyler the Creator's greatest song of all time. Each episode will focus on a single album. Some exceptions today, well, we'll nominate the standout tracks we think are in contention for Tyler's best off of that project. At the end of the episode, we each must crown a last song Standing, the one song we think deserves to advance. Those album champions move on to our season finale while they'll face off in a last song standing Royal Rumble, until Charles and I are forced to agree on a single winner. The greatest Tyler the Creator song ever made.
- [11:55]
A
But today, we're adding a little bit of a twist. Instead of us breaking down one album, we're breaking down two. So we're going to start with 2009's Bastard, which was Tyler's debut. Then we're gonna move on to 2011's Goblin. Jesus called, he said he's sick of the dances. I told him to quit. You at my school, departed in my house, ended at your panties. Oh, she is who I'm thinking of when I am beating Richard up.
- [12:22]
B
All right, so we're gonna talk about Bastard first. But before we get there, I did wanna kind of walk us through Tyler's background, because I was able to dig up a lot of his early MySpace music, which I think. I don't know how many fans of this show have gone to the YouTube depths of either YouTube or like SoundCloud or even like there's some like, Z share links still floating out there. So I was able to dig up a lot of stuff. So I think it'd be interesting for people to hear some of that early stuff. So Here's a little 60 second bio on Tyler. Born in 1991 in Hawthorne, California. Raised by his mother and grandmother. Sounds like he likes. He moved around a lot, switched schools a lot. Fun fact. He did live in Sacramento, my hometown, for a brief stint and went to my same high school.
- [13:10]
A
Really? Shout out.
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B
Elk Grove High School, small suburb outside of Sacramento. I was already graduated by the time he was there and I think he only went there for a couple months before he moved back down to la.
- [13:21]
A
But I could see a little bit of Sacramento in Tyler and in you.
- [13:26]
B
So how. Yeah, okay. I don't know what that means. Let's move on. So he discovers skateboarding and music around the same time. 12, 13. And he begins teaching himself how to play piano. Inspired by A Pharrell early nerd 2003 DVD. So he sees Pharrell playing piano, singing along. 20 minutes into this DVD. Have you seen the actual footage that inspired Tyler to play the piano at
- [13:57]
A
one point so long ago?
- [13:59]
B
We'll play it here for the listeners. That's a song called Thrasher. It's like a skater. It's just Pharrell on a piano. So nothing special. But I think it is kind of cool to have the genesis of Tyler on documented. Which Pharrell, obviously we know is like one of his biggest influences. So I was able to dig up his earliest surviving beat. So this is a beat from 2005, I think. This is all Internet, so hopefully the facts are straight. But he would have been 14 or 15 years old. It's called Miami apartment, or at least that's the name it's been given. I'm not sure Tyler said title did that or not, but I want to play for you in real time. This first ever surviving Tyler the creator beat.
- [15:05]
C
Not bad.
- [15:08]
A
It is. It is not bad. But. This has to be around the time Pharrell made in my mind.
- [15:21]
B
Yeah, the drums on that are.
- [15:22]
A
This is straight. Like him. Like a 14, 15 year old Tyler just doing like in my mind, BBC era pharrell type shit.
- [15:35]
B
But what I love is like again, drums. Maybe not what we usually expect from Tyler, but that chord for sure, seventh chord on a synth is so Tyler that literally never goes away in his entire career up till this day. Beautiful jazz inspired chords on Synthesizers is so. So Tyler. And we hear it here first all the way when he was 14, which I think is super interesting. Okay, so then 2007, 2008, he's 16, 17. This is when he starts his MySpace, his blog spots and he starts to build odd Future. So I did find one of his earliest albums. It's an EP called Stereotype by Ace the Creator. For those that don't know, Ace the Creator was his original name before Tyler the creator. Have you heard any of this? This actually has.
- [16:23]
A
No, actually, I haven't heard this.
- [16:25]
B
Okay, so this is the first track called I Dream off Stereotypes.
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A
Like I eat shoes, I rock ice cream sneaks cause it looking like a wall Fashion Week, baby. Name please. I'm a supreme freak Fox hills moms, babes on my feet Beat the White Tea Team.
- [16:49]
B
Okay, that's not bad.
- [16:51]
A
This is very like once again, it. It's so funny because Tyler would go on to make so much fun of that type of song. This reminds me very much of like Lil B L A. Just like not Jerk or Snap, but just like a very like, oh, I'm talking about my Supreme Logo hoodies. And it's just so funny that I'm like, oh, he would go on to improve on that, but he would go on to make fun of that type of rapper.
- [17:27]
B
Okay, that was. I think he was, yeah, 16 or so when he made that one. This was going to be a trivia question, but I'm just going to give it to you now. There was. So I don't know if it was like his producer name or what, but he also had a alias called Poly Mono. Have you heard of this at all?
- [17:42]
A
No, this is one I have not heard.
- [17:45]
B
Okay, so Poly Slash Mono, I think was either another character or alias or it was this producer name because he released this project called Pink Gold Square Pixels and it's all instrumental work. And we'll play first track off Pink Gold Square right here.
- [18:09]
A
Okay, I'm fucking with this.
- [18:11]
B
That's good. You can start to get the darker. Okay, so where we had like pretty chord progressions on those first two tracks. Now we're starting to get the, like those dark minor. You can hear some like Odd Future ramped up vocals to this. So. Okay, so also in 2008, he's assembling the members of Odd Future. So original members, Casey Veggies, Haji Left Brain, Matt Martians, Taco, Sid and Jasper. They all start making music in Sid's and Taako's house called the Trap. Tyler has fond memories of this time, just working on Bastard, working on all these early Odd Future mixtapes. I think the first official Odd Future release. I might have this wrong, but June 2008 is when him and Jasper release I Smell Panties, an ep, which is essentially a comedy album. I'm not sure if you've ever listened to this, but that's just them kind of like, fuck around. We'll play a little bit of it for the listeners here. She's on my dip she like my
- [19:18]
A
nuts and ask me if I give a no I don't
- [19:24]
B
suck his dick when the water go down. But just a few months after that, they release in November, the Odd Future mixtape.
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A
Now bring the ruler out like Rick the Ruler paid and fool I'm cooler than you're cooler Got these hoes now where's my garden tool them all, all them fuck with the future. I back with Thrash Hard Backyard. Listen to that.
- [19:45]
B
So all those. All those characters I just listed are on there. It has Odd Toddlers, which will show up on Bastard. But this is like, you know, the rough drafts, to use Earl's term, Odd Future mixtape. You said you kind of remembered this a little bit.
- [20:01]
A
I must have went back after, like, Bastard or a little bit before and listened to this and I was not impressed at all. But once again, rough drafts.
- [20:10]
B
Yeah, exactly. They did get their first Hype Trap blurb off of this mixtape. And, like, you know, they're not quite getting, like, the underground following that they would have after Bastard. But, you know, you can start to see the pieces come together with all these, like, blog spot releases that Tyler's putting out. All these random things starting to coalesce into something, right? 2009, that's when Earl Swetcher and Domo Genesis join Odd Future. And this is when Tyler is really setting work on what would become Bastard again. They're all recording at the Trap studio, working on their debut mixtapes, and then all culminating with Bastard released on December 25, 2009 on Z Share. And Tyler said in retrospect that 46 people downloaded it when it came out. So the Tyler that we know now is like, we're starting to see it crystallize. And I think everyone had to go back to Bastard, but we can kind of get into Bastard proper now. I'm wondering, were you. Did you hear about Tyler like, Goblin, Yonkers on, or were you on some of these early stuff?
- [21:17]
A
No, I listened to. I listened to Bastard first.
- [21:20]
B
Oh, okay.
- [21:20]
A
Because I think what was interesting and it speaks to kind of like the contradiction that's Inherent not only in Tyler, but in our future is that around this time Tyler's one year older than me. So there were to me, there were like two sections of music consumption. The bottom fell, fell out of the mainstream of labels. Streaming had not taken off yet. CD sales were dipping. So on one side, everybody wanted to be on a Fader magazine, everybody wanted to get reviewed by Pitchfork. But both of those publications, highly white, everybody working at there was like it was a very gated community. So even though they were the tastemakers and they would be reviewing rap, like if you were a kid like me, just like you would click on there's a white person. And then you had something else boiling up, which was the blogs, something that Tyler obviously wanted to be a part of. We're talking about Nah, right 2 dope boys, fake store drive. Like the list goes on and on. But that to me was even though all of those creators of those blogs weren't black, that was actually the real incubation where everyone from like Wale to Kid Cudi to Wiz Khalifa and Currency, I remember going, checking not right to dope boys. All of these blogs every single day, multiple times a day and downloading almost anything that they told me was hot. And when I talk about the contradiction of Tyler and Odd Future, I think the reason that he railed against these blogs for not posting him so is because while he wanted and he ultimately got the tastemaker stamp of a fader or a Pitchfork, that's a white audience. What you really wanted was the like the two dope boys. The nah writes the comment sections to be like, yo, this is the hottest rapper ever. And very, very quickly Tyler would leap over the Charles Hamiltons of the world and all of these other people that were those blog darlings. But I do think that like in his a lot of what he is grappling with is like, why won't these people accept me? Why don't they think I'm hot? Like it was both a punchline. But I do think that there is a truth to it of just like being a teenager, being like, why don't these 30 year old fucking hip hop heads who are running these blogs want to post my fucking music? It's better than all of the other wack shit that they're posting. Yo yo 2 doughboys. And now writing any other ass blog that can put a 18 year old nigga making his own beats, covers, videos and all that shit. Fuck you post Drake ass cliche jerking, LA Slauson rapping fuck nigga ass hype.
- [24:09]
C
Beast Niggas.
- [24:10]
A
I remember listening to Like A Bastard and not getting it where I could tell that there was talent there. But because I was his same age, I think there was also a level of like, he's rapping about stuff that's not as cinematic to me at that time. Which is he's rapping about, like, not having a dad and not getting posted on blogs. Jay Z rapping about selling drugs. One of them is very cinematic. One of them is just like, yeah, you're rapping about shit that like 14 and 15 year olds worry about.
- [24:51]
B
To be fair, he's writing this from. These are songs on Bastard. These are songs 15, 16, 17 years old.
- [24:58]
A
Yes.
- [24:58]
B
So it's like, what else is he going to talk about, really? Okay. So I always try to lay out the concepts of each album before we dig in. So this is Bastard is the first in what is now known as the Wolf trilogy. This is three concept albums all under the same kind of thematic umbrella. Tyler sitting with this therapist, Dr. TC, which, spoiler alert, is Tyler's conscience. That twist ending we'll talk about on Goblin, where that's revealed, but essentially frames the album, frames these songs as therapy sessions where he does begin talking about growing up without a father. The album ends with him maybe as we're kind of led to believe that it's a suicide attempt at the end of the album. I don't want to try to oversell the concept, but I do think there's something interesting one about Tyler from day one being a conceptual artist again, something that would never, will never leave in his entire discography. Every album is a concept. Every album comes with a character, you know, a different costume, a different look, a different aesthetic, and usually has some kind of storyline. And so we see him, even from a very early age, having a vision, being a conceptual artist. And not only that, I mean, even like in the very opening moments. Dr. TC says this is gonna be the first of three sessions.
- [26:20]
A
Well, Tyler, hi, I'm Dr. TC and I'm guessing that your teacher sent you here to talk. Cause you were misbehaving. It's gonna be three sessions today, tomorrow, and the next day.
- [26:35]
C
So.
- [26:36]
B
Meaning the first three albums of this Wolf Trilogy. So it's like already 17, 18 years old. He's thinking not only about this one project, but about the next three projects. It was like very Kanye esque in terms of the College Dropout trilogy, where he's already thinking about not just a college dropout. It's going to be late registration. Then it's Going to be graduation. Then it's going to be good ass job. He's thinking miles ahead. Right. So I think that's pretty interesting. I think there's also something conceptually interesting about this troubled kid without a father. We go on to hear him talk about rape fantasies, you know, violence, like all this kind of up. But it is framed under this umbrella of characters and this concept of a troubled kid who is in. We'll find out in Goblin in the Sane Asylum. It's obviously very adolescent in its conception and its concept. But I don't know, is it as interesting as I'm trying to. To make it, or do you think it's just kind of like a.
- [27:35]
A
No. No. Revisiting the album. What I notice, even in the title of like Bastard Goblin Wolf and in the lyrics is that to me, this is like incel music. Before, like, we really contended with what incels were. And I don't mean that in like a pejorative way of like, oh, wagging my finger at Tyler.
- [27:58]
B
You do.
- [27:59]
A
In his lyrics, you're hearing a young black man contend with what it means to like, not be a sex symbol. And Tyler, like, once you get money, everybody's attractive. Tyler's not an ugly man. But I do. When you're, like, listening to that. There's so much of him rapping about either not want being wanted or sex that he's not having, or the sex turning into rape. And he's talking about. He's wagging his finger at everything that like bling and rappers and this, but also really, really wanting to be a part of that world. It's so fascinating to me that so much of these early projects are of this, like, young teenager trying to come to grips with, like. But I don't have the voice of a Pharrell. I don't have this thing that's easily sellable. And he's both, like, happy about it, but there's also just this, like, little part of him that's just like, fuck am I? Like, will I ever be accepted? And that's why I think even when narratively the story does not always go here, the tc, the like, talking to this therapist, the twist ending are always kind of like hodgepodge. If you really listen to the lyrics, I'm like, oh, okay, this is a kid working through something in real time. And of course, millions of people would go on to fall in love with this because I do think this was something that is part of the teen experience.
- [29:34]
B
Yeah.
- [29:34]
A
Since the dawn of time. But I think Tyler was talking about something that was happening at, like, what we would go on to know is, like, peak Internet. What it was just, like, you would see it was stuff, like. Because the Internet and everything that, like, would come before and after. I think at this time, the Internet seemed like a net positive in the world. It felt like, oh, Twitter is important. Oh, my gosh, Tumblr is important. Look at all of the aesthetics and these jokes and everything that we're building. But under that current. I think there was a little bit of loneliness that would explode into, like, a national crisis. Crisis of, like, loneliness and being dejected. And that's why I loved returning to these albums, because I'm like, oh, this is ground zero for a bunch of stuff that we wouldn't really be able to understand until, like, years and years later.
- [30:30]
B
Yeah. I mean, they also. I mean, it's clear Tyler wants attention.
- [30:34]
A
Yes.
- [30:34]
B
I think a lot of the kind of horrorcore elements of the early stuff is like a kid looking for attention. What's the fastest way to get attention? Provoke people, Shock people. You know what I mean? So I think there's some of that in there. I mean, there's also, like. I mean, I remember when I was a kid, or not a kid, when I was, like, when I first got into writing, like, there's a period in my life where I wanted to be a writer, fiction writer, and the first stuff that I ever wrote was, like, horror stuff, which I'm not even into, like, horror books or movies. Yeah. But there was a freedom in my adolescent mind where I could, like, write the most up and no one could stop, Like, I could, like, no one could stop me from doing it. There was, like, some kind of power in it. I mean, I didn't ever put that stuff out publicly, and. But I. I have some kind of connection with that, that intuition. When you're experimenting creatively as a youth, you're looking to provoke. You have not a check. Like, I mean, his background's not, like, perfect, you know, so you have some of that, and there's a lot of teenage angst. There's a lot of just him being a naturally rebellious kid, being, like, a clear leader from day one, wanting to be, like, anti establishment. But at the same time, you listen to some of the early interviews, like Post Bastard and Goblin, where he's like, fuck the underground shit. I want Grammys. I want MTV Awards. Like, he. He wants to be big, you know, he wants attention. So, yeah, there's a lot of that tension on the album, you know, where it's like, on one hand, he does want acceptance. On the other hand, he wants to be independent. He wants to be himself.
- [32:04]
A
I mean, I would even say for, like, people were, like, labeling him hardcore or obviously there are those elements in there, but you think of, like, an Eminem or an Insane Clown Posse or even mov. Like, Jordan Peele's get out had not been released yet. And the reason I bring up something like that is when we think of horror, when you think of the biggest horror directors or actors, they're usually white. So I do think that there was this allure, especially from the people writing about Tyler, the. The white music journalists or bloggers, where it was like, oh, my gosh, black kids feel this way. They're into this shit. Like, I do think that there was a lot of, like, it's one thing when, like, Eminem does it. I think it's different when, like, eight black kids from LA do it. There is this, like, oh, what's going on? And I think Tyler was smart enough at that age to realize that where we were still in a. What I like. And we'll talk about it later with a song like Smuckers Off, Cherry Bomb with Lil Wayne and Kanye. Right at this time in hip hop, we had already gotten the first generation of rappers who had either grown up in the suburbs or their main subject matter was not necessarily about being embedded in the streets, crime, drug. Like, of course, you had A Tribe Called Quest or all of these other artists. But I think that very, very quickly, like, in the 2000s, you're like, oh, Kanye's popping up. And we have Lil Wayne, all of these artists that Tyler would like. Pharrell that Tyler was seeing. And now in the second generation, that the second wave, when it was like, Wale and Kid Cudi and wizcalief and all this, Tyler's the end of that second wave, where it's like, no, no, this is an actual kid. While he didn't grow up rich, and he didn't. But he didn't grow up in abject poverty. And he loves skateboarding and he loves supreme, and he loves horror movies, and he's gonna rap about Jeffrey Dahmer back. Like, everything I'm saying now, they're like people like, well, duh. And I'm like, back then, that was like.
- [34:17]
B
Or the.
- [34:18]
A
Is happening.
- [34:19]
B
Yeah. Or he, like. You know, he's pretty adamant about, like, rock music like Slipknot, Good Charlotte, the Hives. These are all people you said were influences. And then you pair that with his love of, like, Neo soul or like,
- [34:29]
A
soulquarian movement, Erykah Badu and all. Like. And here's the thing, black people were always into this shit. They were always into it. I just don't think that we had the means all the time to wear those influences on our sleeves and for people to understand it. And with Tyler and all of these artists at that time, oh, I don't need permission. I don't need to ask your magazine to get an interview. I can go to Tumblr, I can go to Twitter. You are going to see in real time by what I'm reposting or what I'm talking about. This is what I love. And that also, if we're being real, is what ends up getting Tyler in trouble. What ends up getting him banned from this country or that country, or for people finger wagging. Because I do think it's one thing when you have a troubled white punk rock star saying all this shit. Having a black. Having black kids go to New York and be like, kill people, birth shit, fuck school on stage. I remember it, I was just like. Even if I didn't like the music at the time, I'm like, hey, no, fuck y'. All. Let him. No, let him tilt their goodness.
- [35:40]
B
All right, should we move on to my favorite part of the show?
- [35:44]
A
Yes.
- [35:45]
B
Album trivia.
- [35:46]
A
Trivia.
- [35:49]
B
So this is a tradition on this show. The first episode of each season, we have a segment on album Trivia. We're going to quiz each other on Tyler, the Creator facts here in a second. But we need a name for this season's trivia portion. And I asked you, you always give us a few options to choose from and then we'll select the name of the out of the trivia section. So how many you have?
- [36:11]
A
Let's see, these are going to come quick and fast or off the Dome. Quiz me if you get lost.
- [36:18]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [36:20]
A
Quiz people. Burn. Shit. Fuck school.
- [36:22]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [36:24]
A
Justin, if you have any, throw them out. Those are the two that came that. That came to me the quickest.
- [36:28]
B
Okay.
- [36:30]
A
Are there any others?
- [36:32]
C
Don't tap the ask.
- [36:37]
A
That's pretty good. Quiz. Magic Wand.
- [36:42]
B
My favorite so far is the first one.
- [36:46]
C
Yeah.
- [36:47]
B
Quiz me if you get Lost.
- [36:48]
A
Quiz me if you get lost.
- [36:49]
B
I think that works.
- [36:50]
A
Let's do Quiz Me if youf Get Lost. Okay.
- [36:52]
B
Okay. So Quiz Me if youf Get Lost is where Charles and I try to stump each other with little known facts about the album. So in this case, we're actually gonna combine this. We're gonna do Bastard and Goblin. Essentially anything From Tyler earlyage to Goblin era, Tyler is on the table. Whoever gets the most questions correct will get first pick in the last song standing segment at the end of the episode. Also, we're gonna keep a season long tally of correct answers. Whoever has the most amount of correct answers at the end of the season will get a mystery prize from Justin. Hell yeah. Justin does not have it picked out yet.
- [37:26]
C
I don't think I got Riff Raff on speed dial in case we need to get more cameos and Jimmer for debt. Jimmer's got, you know, he's probably off playing basketball in China or something that I'm not aware of right now, but Riff Raff is available.
- [37:41]
B
Okay, so last year Justin got us cameos from Riffraff.
- [37:47]
A
Honestly, Riffraff is. Riffraff is making a comeback musically. I heard him rapping over seven Nation Army. Oh, really? A couple months ago. Yeah, yeah, he's doing things.
- [37:57]
B
He popped up on your timeline. Okay, okay, so I'll go first. I have like seven potential questions. God damn, I went deep with this one. Question number one, Tyler wrote his first rap when he was seven years old. What song did he write his rap to? You don't you have to know the song? Give me the artist.
- [38:20]
A
Definitely has to be like a Pharrell beat.
- [38:23]
B
Not a Pharrell beat. Not a Pharrell beat. Think. Not bigger than Pharrell. But he is definitely on record as loving this particular group. I'll give you a hint there. And a little bit more mainstream.
- [38:36]
A
I don't know.
- [38:38]
B
All right, so it was the second half of Positivity by the Black Eyed Peas.
- [38:43]
A
Fuck. I did know he was into the Black Eyed Peas, but every single time I would read it in interviews, I'd be like, there's no way we'll play
- [38:50]
B
the beat for people here. That's pretty cool.
- [39:00]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [39:01]
B
All right.
- [39:02]
A
So, all right, this is a softball.
- [39:04]
B
Okay.
- [39:07]
A
Before Odd Future was a musical group, what was the original concept for Odd Future
- [39:19]
B
from Tyler's point of view? Like Tyler's?
- [39:22]
A
Yeah, before it was like a musical group with the name Odd Future. What did he want to do with it?
- [39:30]
B
I remember reading this actually. It wasn't closed, was it?
- [39:35]
A
It wasn't close.
- [39:36]
B
Yeah, it was. I don't know. I forgot.
- [39:40]
A
All right, so he said in an interview, with respect, it was supposed to be a magazine at first in my sophomore year. But what 15 year old do you know from a single parent who's going to make enough funds with no job to really do a magazine? So basically he was gonna have, like, Left Brain Haji take photos. He was gonna make all, like, fake ads and shit like that. So I was just like. Even from that early age, it's funny that, like, it's like, yeah, I'll make a magazine, which is also like, that's like the last generation who's just like, you know what? I wanna make magazines as someone who worked at a magazine.
- [40:16]
B
Okay, so we're both ofer here. Okay.
- [40:18]
A
Okay.
- [40:20]
B
Let me give you an easier one. Okay. You should maybe, maybe know this. So this is jumping ahead to Gob. She, featuring Frank Ocean, was originally produced with another artist in mind, but Tyler had no way of getting the beat to him. Who was this artist?
- [40:34]
A
Justin Bieber.
- [40:35]
B
No, no. I'll give you one more guess. Rapper. A rapper legend.
- [40:47]
A
Wayne?
- [40:48]
B
No, Snoop.
- [40:49]
A
Snoop? Snoop on what?
- [40:51]
B
On Chi.
- [40:52]
A
No, wait.
- [40:54]
B
Actually, I mean, it has some of the Pharelli, like, you know, I can see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [40:58]
A
No, actually, now that I'm thinking I could see Snoop on this.
- [41:01]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [41:01]
A
Fuck, yeah. Okay. All right. We've already talked about the blog era. This, to me, is. Is a softball. Early in Tyler's career, he antagonized many music blogs for not posting his music, but especially two dope boys. Can you name the founders of the popular blog?
- [41:30]
B
I don't. I don't know. I shouldn't know, but I don't know.
- [41:32]
A
Mecca and Shake. Is that. Was that a. Is that a fair question? I mean, Justin.
- [41:39]
C
Yeah.
- [41:40]
A
Cause Mecha and Shake did. Did respond to Tyler where they were just like, A, he never sent us his music. B, why does he care so much? Which is. I also think it was a supreme branding decision from Tyler to say, like, fuck the blogs. Because at some point, I'm like, he doesn't actually care that much anymore. But it is, like, a good thing because so many. It's like at this point, someone saying, like, back then being like, fuck Pitchfork. You know how many people were like, fuck Pitchfork. It's just like, you're.
- [42:10]
B
Yeah.
- [42:11]
A
All right. Damn. We're both all right. Give me your last one. Well, you have seven.
- [42:16]
B
Okay. What was the name of the first beat Tyler made on a cracked version of Fruity Loops 2004? This one's kind of hard.
- [42:26]
A
I don't fucking know. This what it's called reverse.
- [42:30]
B
All right, hold on.
- [42:30]
A
How was I supposed to get that?
- [42:31]
B
Okay, here. How about this? How about this? How about this? Yonkers was nominated for MTV Video of the Year. He did win Best Artist that same year, but in the MTV Video of the year. He lost to what? Either song or artist. You can give me whatever. Fuck Katy Perry. Fireworks, dog.
- [42:53]
A
These questions. How do I know mtv? I worked at mtv and I would not know that. I wasn't watching this shit. All right, all right. We gotta get next episode Softball.
- [43:04]
B
Okay. Yeah. Okay.
- [43:07]
A
Tyler said on Instagram that New Magic Wand is a perfected version of what early song in his discography.
- [43:14]
B
How are these softballs? You keep saying you're making me look bad. This is a softball.
- [43:17]
A
That's a softball. You should. New Magic Wand is one of your favorites.
- [43:20]
B
I know, but I mean, I definitely have read this at some point, but like, that retaining in my brain. Let me see. Is a reference. Do you know what album is it on this album?
- [43:30]
A
Bastard.
- [43:31]
B
Oh, it's on Bastard.
- [43:34]
A
And it's not the one. I was like, what? I was like, tyler, what the fuck are you talking about?
- [43:40]
B
Would it be, shit, I don't know. Pigs Fly.
- [43:45]
A
It's French featuring Haji.
- [43:47]
B
Okay.
- [43:48]
A
Which I'm like, I could.
- [43:50]
B
I could. I could see that. Actually, you can see it production wise. Yeah, I can see it.
- [43:55]
C
All right.
- [43:55]
A
Damn. Neither of us. I was like, I'm an ace. These fuck is going on.
- [44:01]
B
All right. Okay, so 0 for 3. Both of us off to a great start.
- [44:10]
C
This is rough, guys.
- [44:14]
B
Well, it's because we, like, early on in last long standing, we would give each other actual softballs and we would get a lot of them. Right? So I think at this point in our relationship, we're always like, fuck.
- [44:24]
A
Well, he's not gonna know this. Here's the thing, because you've done seasons on Tyler, and because I grew up on Tyler, I was like, let me look up questions that I don't. Because there were so many facts where I'm like, he's gonna get this. He's gonna get this. He's gonna get this. Let me try to, like, dig a little. All right, all right. Zero on the board.
- [44:43]
B
That's. Okay. Well, let's move into song nominations. You ready for this?
- [44:47]
A
Yeah, let's do it.
- [44:48]
B
All right, so remember, the goal of each season of last song standing is for Charles and I to determine the single best song by Tyler the creator. The songs we select over the course of the season will then duke it out. In a season finale royal rumble. We'll be forced to agree on the last song standing, the single best song by Tyler the creator. Right now, we are nominating two songs from Bastard that we think should be in contention for Tyler's best. Do you want to go First.
- [45:13]
A
I'll go first because I already brought the song up. I'm nominating French okay. Featuring Haji Beats.
- [45:20]
B
Okay.
- [45:20]
A
Got all the black bitches mad. Cause my main bitch Vanilla? She trying to get her groove back. Like Stella, grab the umbrella. When it comes to your perception of my shit, I'm Helen Keller. When it comes to the perfection of my shit, I'm gonna do my best Tyler impression. Got all the black bitches bad. Cause my main bitch Vanilla. When I heard that, that's pretty good. When I heard that as a kid, I was just like, damn, this nigga going off the beat is phenomenal. When we were talking earlier about Tyler having a few key ideas that he consistently goes back to, French, to me, is a perfect example of this kid can make bangers. He knows how to. Whether it's the first line of a bar, whether it's the chorus to just grab your attention, it does remind me of a very punk rock ethos. You little better, French. It was just. It's so raw. And I do think that on Bastard, maybe the engineering and the mixing is a little all over the place, or some of the raps or the drums concepts.
- [46:38]
B
My biggest thing with a lot of these songs, that the drums are. Aren't there. They're not hitting the way that I know he probably wanted them to hit. They do work live. Like, French live amazing. Like sandwiches live amazing because you're getting the live energy. The drum. The mixing's not as important because Radicals
- [46:56]
A
is a perfect example of, like, radicals. Live was almost burning down places. And then when you listen to radicals on the album, you're like, you want to know what it reminds me of? It was Connie had this quote around the time of graduation where he was realizing that a lot of his music could not be played in stadiums. And I think Tyler had this weird problem where he could make music that sounded so good live because it's him and his friends jumping around, crowd surfing, just all this shit. And then when you would listen to the actual record, just, like, he's not capturing it. And I think French is one of those records where he gets closest to capturing the chaos of what made early Odd Future just so. So electric. And my first hot take of the season.
- [47:53]
B
Oh,
- [47:56]
A
I won't say for the whole course of his career, but I think, honestly, the artist that Tyler had the most chemistry with was actually Haji Beat. To me, Haji Beats is like the Lloyd Banks of Odd Future, where I'm gonna talk about him later in the episode as well, but I don't actually think Tyler had as much chemistry with Frank Ocean as you think, where they work together quite a bit early on. But there's always something where it's like, either. A lot of times it was more so Frank having to come into Tyler's world, where it's like, Haji Beats is just like the stoner best friend who's not trying to, like, out rap Tyler. Like, when Earl's on a. On a beat with Tyler, you can tell which one of these is, like, the star and which one of these is the better rapper. Like, Earl is such a better rapper than Tyler. And I'm just like, with Haji, it's a little bit more equal. And I just think French is just such a fun song. I remember being in high school and just thinking, I was like, all right, I gotta give it up. Incredible.
- [49:06]
B
Amazing opening line. I'm glad. I'm glad you called that out. Then following it with, she trying to get a groove back like Stella, because grab the umbrella.
- [49:16]
A
Perception of my I'm Hell. And Keller.
- [49:18]
B
Okay, that line, too. When it comes to your perception of my I'm Helen Keller. I love that. But groove back like Stella, I had to look this up, but in that movie, Stella's husband leaves her for a white woman. So there's some wordplay with the opening line. Grab the umbrella. I don't know. Do you know what that means? I read it on Genius. On the sitcom How I Met yout Mother, there's this character named Stella, and there's a yellow umbrella. That's important, too. I don't know if that's the reference.
- [49:45]
A
I highly doubt Tyler was How I
- [49:47]
B
Met yout Mother fan.
- [49:49]
A
I was how you Met yout Mother fan at this time, Tyler? I'm not sure.
- [49:53]
B
Yeah.
- [49:54]
A
But I also think that this is, like. I might have brought this up already, but I think what is so funny about, like, Tyler at this time, and it's so interesting about music made by teenagers is a lot of times teenagers are, like, singing or rapping about shit that they just have not done. And I think throughout this trilogy from Bastard, Goblin and Wolf, Tyler is, like, on a lot of tracks, is either rapping about sex, that he's not having drugs, that he does not do acts, whether it is assault or rape. All this stuff where it's, like, to your point earlier, it's to provoke.
- [50:38]
B
Right.
- [50:39]
A
And I think that why Tyler was such a lightning rod at that point was that a lot of older. Because when you go back to, like, old Village Voice pieces or this or that, it's like, oh, my Gosh, these kids. I can't believe they're espousing this. Or is it gonna be another Columbine? Oh, my God, they're so homophobic. And the funny thing that happened, like, Sid said this in a. In an interview. Sid, the kid who was their engineer and DJ early on, she was a lesbian, and she's just like. I kept having to answer all these questions about how I feel about these boys dropping the F bomb and being homophobic, and now half of them are queer. That is what's so interesting about listening to these songs is you're just like, oh, maybe consciously they don't know that they're working through this stuff, but subconsciously it's there. Because even on a lot of these records, Tyler will be, like, making fun of, like, rappers for, like, wearing chains and, like, having all these fucking cars and talking about all these women. I'm just like, very soon. Once he had the money, Tyler was flashing. He had the chains, he had all of it. So it's like, I find. I think, that this song is a good example on French of not only everything that made Early Odd Future so infectious, but it does speak to the contradiction. Like, these teenagers are both, like, mad at, like, modern rap and everything that they don't have and want it desperately.
- [52:15]
B
So I'm gonna. Let's move on to my first nomination. Might be a basic choice, but I gotta go. Bastard intro this is what the devil
- [52:22]
A
plays before he goes to sleep Some food for thought this food for death Go ahead and eat My father's dead well, I don't know we'll never meet I cut my wrists and play piano Because I'm so depressed if you weren't going to pick it, I was gonna pick it.
- [52:36]
B
Okay.
- [52:36]
A
To me, this is the foundational text.
- [52:41]
B
Yeah.
- [52:41]
A
Of Tyler the Creator. If to me, this is actually one of his most important songs early on because he. He lays out everything.
- [52:51]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, musically, I'll just talk about first. Super interesting for, like. For Tyler the Creator's quote unquote, first song, you know, ignoring everything that he did before on the MySpace stuff. Like, this is his first official album. First song. And it's a long, no drums, piano, led, nine short verse vignette. You know, the song structure is super weird in that it's nine short vignette verses separated by essentially these instrumental. Little short instrumental things.
- [53:23]
A
Yeah.
- [53:24]
B
So just, like, structurally, right off the bat. And it works, like, you know, I don't think structurally. I think structure is something he struggled with early on in his career. And that's something he had to learn in the Cherry Bomb, Flower Boy era. I mean, shows glimpses of traditional song structure on like Wolf and stuff we'll talk about. But to have such a conceptually kind of off kiltered song in this title track, and it actually works like, I think I'm engaged the entire way through, you know, on this song. Even though it is just a piano, there is no hook to grab, you know, to anchor the song. It's still. It's like continuous motion from start to end. We already talked about the concept of the album, but that this is where he lays out the concept of the first three albums is on this one track, you know, and you get a pretty good. He sets the expectation of that pretty clearly. Like, you know what it is, you know, it's Tyler sitting down, talking to this therapist. I think the rhyming itself is kind of clunky at times, but like, one thing I think we take for granted with early Tyler is how fully formed one his rapping was, like organic, like hitting pockets of beats from day one was like always there to me. Like the rapping itself never felt. Feels clunky. Maybe the lyricism, maybe the rhyme structure does. But in terms of his just natural ability to flow on a beat is there from day one, I think Bastard is a great example of that. I think seven, the second track, is a great example of that also. I think we take for granted just the sound of Tyler's voice as one of the most distinct voices in hip hop history. This deep, gravelly baritone, which in my mind differs from a lot of deep voices in hip hop in that there's something about it. It's very low, but it's. It still pokes out in the mix, like so definitively, where it's like a lot of times with lower voices, it gets kind of buried with the music because the lower resonance kind of sink into the lower sections of the song, but his always stays on the top. It's always crystal clear. I think that has to do with the gravel part of his voice, but it just has a voice alone, I think is one of the most idiosyncratic. Just the texture of it, you know what I mean? Which also, I mean, I don't know if you have anything to say about that, but I'm.
- [55:45]
A
I was gonna say really quick.
- [55:46]
B
Yeah.
- [55:48]
A
It is so interesting to me that the very thing that you can tell, even in interviews, Tyler is the most self conscious about, which is his voice on a song like Bastard is actually what turns him into A star. Because to your point, when you think of, like, a deep voice in rap, you take a Rick Ross, right? Historically, when you think of deep voices in rap, it's all about luxury. You are the pimp figure. You are usually heavyset. You're the person that's getting all the girls, or you're a drug dealer. It's about aggression, and Tyler has that aggression. But on something like Bastard, he's playing into being a monster. He's playing up almost the cinematic quality of this, where even when you think of, like, Eminem, because he loved Eminem, Eminem's voice is not this deep. Eminem is a little bit of a. He's a trickster when he's rapping. It's, like pitched up, very nasally voice. I think it's so funny to me that, like, even when you were playing, like, the early MySpace raps, Tyler was still trying to rap in a way that would make his voice a little bit more palatable for the audience. And the first track off Bastard is him kind of finally accepting, like, I have to actually rap how I talk. And that is what blows him up. But I think I know what you're gonna ask. What are the best voices in rap?
- [57:12]
B
The best. We gotta go top five. Just real quick sidebar. Because it definitely got me thinking about, what are your favorite? It doesn't have to be the best, but your favorite. Just the sound of their voice, not taking lyricism out of it, even flow out of it. Just the texture of the voice. We're gonna ask Justin this too, but I'm curious. You're just rattle off the top five
- [57:33]
A
for me in no order. And this might not even be a top five, but just in no order. I would say. Biggie easily just has such an interesting voice. Jadakiss, phenomenal fucking voice. Pusha T cuts through the fucking beat every single goddamn time. Hua ODB is in there. These aren't even my favorite. These are just like 50 Cent to me, has an incredible laughing voice early
- [58:03]
B
before it got too gravelly and it's too gravelly. Well, 50 Cent's voice got, like, shot at later. Later in his career.
- [58:11]
A
Oh. But.
- [58:12]
B
But early. Early 50.
- [58:14]
A
Early 50. Especially after he gets shot and he has to figure out how to rap again. I don't know what happened to his voice, but just like, what those like, first, like, those mixed the mixtape run into, like, get Richard die trying is just like, yeah, massive for masterful fucking shit. Who am I? Who am I missing?
- [58:34]
B
Let's go to Justin. You have a top Five.
- [58:36]
C
It's funny you said odb. I was like, there could be five different people from Wu Tang.
- [58:40]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:41]
B
But I've got two on mine.
- [58:43]
C
Method Man. No one has ever sounded cooler rapping.
- [58:46]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:47]
C
I have Biggie on my list, too. One thing I thought about a lot was rappers who had been sampled the most, too, because their voice sounded so cool. And Rakim. Yeah, the God God MC Rakim came up in that thinking process. Prodigy from Mobb Deep.
- [59:09]
A
Oh, hell yeah.
- [59:10]
C
Probably has. Especially, like, later on in his career as he got a little bit older and more weathered. Like, there's just something about that voice which actually, like, it kind of sounds a little demonic in the same way that. That Tyler's does. Like, obviously very different artists, very different stages of their career, but, like, kind of a little bit kinship. I think this conversation, certain. Certain old heads, the same people that I knew that used to be scared of Tyler, would lose their minds if this conversation happened and nobody shouted out. Guru from Gangstar.
- [59:46]
A
Okay.
- [59:47]
C
Mostly the voice. I debated Jadakiss on mine, but that's. That was my top five.
- [59:53]
A
Oh, I forgot, because I wasn't doing a top five. I was just rattling off. I think Andre 3000 has actually one of the best voice. Like, he'd probably be my number one. Just in terms of just like, not only was he an amazing rapper, but any single time you hear Andre 3000's voice, it just feels like bedtime. It just feels like a warm pillow. And then I think Future has had one of the most incredible. Whether he's singing, whether he's rapping, whether he's aggressive, melodic, whatever. He has one of the most malleable. So I would also have to put three stacks of Future on my list. But who's in yours?
- [60:28]
B
So number one. This is loose order, but I think if I had to choose number one, it's Mace.
- [60:34]
A
Ooh, Mace.
- [60:35]
B
The dopest voice ever.
- [60:37]
A
Mace is a good. I forgot about Mace. Wait, wow.
- [60:40]
B
In a good way or a bad way?
- [60:42]
C
I don't know. I thought about Mace for a minute, too.
- [60:44]
A
No, Mace has an incredible. Honestly, Kanye. Most of Kanye's career early is him just trying to rap. Like me.
- [60:51]
B
I got dmx. I'm surprised.
- [60:53]
A
Dmx? Yes.
- [60:54]
B
Method man was on my list. Of course Future is on my list. You know, I'm not, like, the biggest Future fan, but, like, his voice alone, absolutely amazing with the. You know, the. The Whatever audio tune effect that he puts on it. This might be the most controversial one because I know a lot of people Hate his voice, but I love it. It's the rza very. Like, I can see. I can see why people don't like it, but there's something.
- [61:20]
A
I love Riz's voice. His rapping leaves so much to beat.
- [61:24]
B
His weird.
- [61:25]
C
You know, I. RZA was on the short list for Wu Tang. The four names that I was thinking for Wu Tang were five names. Method man, rza, odb, Inspector, Deck, Raekwon, not Ghostface. And that's the thing. Now I keep going, and I'm like, you guys, not my favorite rapper. I'm gonna give it to, like, I could just. Sorry. It might just be everyone besides Master Kill.
- [61:53]
A
Damn. Did I not bring up Ross? I think Ross has an amazing voice.
- [61:56]
C
Oh, that's a good one.
- [61:57]
A
Rick Ross has an amazing, amazing voice, which I'm like. And he's a. I think I already brought him up where it's like, deep voices in rap are so interesting because you can either go the dmx, Tyler, the creator route.
- [62:12]
C
Right.
- [62:13]
A
Or you could go the Biggie and Ross route. And that's what I love about a deep voice of rap, where it's like. And Jadakiss to me is like, well, somewhere in the middle.
- [62:21]
B
Think about what's in common with. With Ross and Biggie versus Tyler. There's a weight difference. I'll just say that that gives it a certain quality.
- [62:31]
A
Yeah.
- [62:32]
B
Okay, so Bastard. I think we covered Bastard title track enough.
- [62:36]
A
No. And I think the last thing I'll say about the title track for Bastard, I thought I would go back to these records. I could not listen to them a lot just because, like, they're very, very rough and depressing at points. As a high schooler, I did not give Tyler as much credit as he deserves. And Bastard is a perfect example of him, like, at that point. This is the movie poster for Tyler the creator, where it's like, oh, in the same way that when you have Kanye west through the wire and you can kind of understand from the beat to the way he's rapping, to the myth, make equality of it. Everything that you need to understand about this artist. I was about to pick Bastard, but the reason I didn't was because I'm like, oh, he ends up perfecting Bastard. Like, Bastard is. Is like the first movie that you have to go back to watch to understand Tyler Creator. But he gets way better at talking about everything on that song with subsequent album. Right.
- [63:41]
B
Okay, so nomination two for you.
- [63:44]
A
Nomination, two. All right. I feel like the fans. The fans would kill me if I didn't go with this. I have to go with ass milk. I'm not an. I just don't give a a lot. The only time I do is when A is screaming, tyler, stop. The big bad wolf. To me, you're just the minor fox red riding this. Give you some of this wolf. We the niggas you scared of like bad dentists. Flow is anthemic, dirty, like it's plants in it. 6.
- [64:13]
C
I was wondering who was gonna be the person who had to say that word first.
- [64:17]
A
No, Admook is the one. This song is fucking incredible.
- [64:21]
B
It's so fun.
- [64:22]
A
It's so fun. It's so good. It's where to me, Tyler and Earl just become undeniable as rappers. I think Tyler was always a very gifted rapper, even if he had clunkers. But to me, what's so funny about it is you can tell. It's like two kids that are friends and you have Earl, who is, like, technically so gifted, like, beyond his age. Like, when you hear him, you're just like, who is this kid who has such a mastery over structure and internal rhyme?
- [65:00]
B
Just like the first, his opening line, Addicts arise when I arrive in this crack Rack length. So you're getting alliteration. Alliteration with addicts arise, arrive all A internal rhyme. Arise and arrive. Next line switches alliteration to the C in this cracked crack F slur back slab in disguise. So four internal rhymes on crack cracked back slab. Brings it back around with disguise to rhyme with the first line. And it just goes on like that.
- [65:28]
A
It's like, addicts arise when I arrived in this crack Crack back.
- [65:38]
B
The density of rhymes are just from the fucking day one. This kid's like, 14 years old doing this. It's insane.
- [65:45]
A
It's incredible. And what makes it so funny is that, like, because Tyler can't keep up with that type of internal rhyme structure, he's being almost like the comedian where he's like, well, I'm just gonna say the most fucked up, nasty shit that's gonna make Earl laugh. And then there's this skit in the middle.
- [66:08]
B
That's so good.
- [66:08]
A
That's so good. Malaria Kid. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Stop. Why did you do that? Say sorry. I'm sorry as fuck. Say sorry.
- [66:18]
B
Sorry as fuck.
- [66:19]
A
Say sorry. I'm sorry.
- [66:20]
B
It just captures exactly the exuberance where
- [66:23]
A
it's like, Tyler is, like, bullying Earl. And it's just. It's so fun. I'm not gonna belabor it. Like, if you've never gone back to Bastard Go listen to asthma for the first time or again. And it just brings a smile back to my face. Because most careers don't end up like this. Where we still get to listen to Earl, we still get to listen to Tyler and see how successful they have come. But I do think that this, to me, this song also speaks to why they diverge not only as creators, but as men. Where to me, both of them, it's easy to see why they were friends, but it's also easy to see what about rap, Both of them champion. And I think Earl was always someone where the poetry of rap, whether it's because his father's a poet, his mother is an academic, where he's coming from. Earl has always been not only interested in just the art of what it means to rhyme, but the political nature of it, what it means to bend words. So when you listen to everything that would come after it, I'm like, oh, there was no way for this young man to grow under the odd future umbrella because he almost had to shave away some of the shtick where it's with Tyler. Tyler is like a carnival barker. Like, everything that he's doing on Asmuch is stuff that he would continue to do and he starts shaving away stuff as well. But this, to me, is the perfect synthesis. Both of them as artists, which is just like the carnival barker and then the supreme jokey poet.
- [68:06]
B
And it works too. I love what they do with the beat too, because the beat switches when it's Earl's turn to rhyme. It has this more classically hip hop. It's a little warmer. And then when it passes to Tyler, the synth comes in and it's like super dark. And like just the way it flows back and forth. Yeah, it makes me laugh every time. That opening sequence that we just kind of dissected with Earl and then Tyler comes in. I'm not an asshole. I just don't give a fuck. A lot. Like the contrast between this beautiful, like, poetic, well put together little. Little vignette and then to Tyler just coming in and.
- [68:43]
A
But also, what's so funny is it. It's. It's hilarious to me at this point that like, like people were afraid of like, odd future. Because Ass Smoke to me is a perfect example of classic, classic hip hop.
- [68:59]
B
Right?
- [68:59]
A
Which is two friends going back and forth, trading rhyme.
- [69:03]
B
Yeah.
- [69:03]
A
Where it's not lost on me. We're gonna talk about Yonkers, obviously, later, that early on, Future at their best is always the core of hip hop, which is like cyphers who has the best rhymes, trading rhymes back and forth. Who can say the craziest shit, who can make someone laugh and assmoke to me is like, is that where. When I listen to it now, knowing, Taking away all of the, oh, my God, all of the slurs. What does this mean? What are they saying? And just listening to it as a song, I'm like, oh, this is a classic hip hop song. Yeah, this is, this is pure, unadulterated, golden age hip hop shit.
- [69:42]
C
Does it make you guys a little bit sad, though, to hear that interlude in the middle, right, with the part where it breaks off and it's, it, like, when I first heard it, like, it brought me a lot of joy, right? The part where Tyler's making, you know, probably pinning down Earl and punching him, making him say uncle. Because at first brought me a lot of joy because it's a reminder that, like, these are just kids. These are teenagers just fucking around in the studio. But a couple months later, Earl would get sent off to boarding school.
- [70:13]
B
Yeah.
- [70:14]
C
And when he came back, like, you know, he didn't put out a record for a little bit, and it was just clear, like, something about him was different. He's kind of never. She's just always felt a little heavier since then, right? And, like, obviously their careers did diverge and they haven't collaborated in anything remotely like this. And it just kind of made me a little sad listening to this. A bunch, like, a little bittersweet, right? Like, this is very, like, I, I, I'm sounding a little bit like I'm talking about, like, people watch Jackass movies now, and instead of, like, focus on all the dumb shit happening, they're like, this is like male friendship, right? But I'm kind of getting that energy from this, from these kids, right? Like, they're just fucking around and they're punching, they're punching each other and they're trying to say, like, one, one up each other with, like, what's the, what's the best rhyme you can spit? Or what's the most deranged thing you can say? And then it was just kind of all gone. It was just this one fleeting moment.
- [71:13]
A
Say sorry. Say sorry. I'm sorry as fuck. Say sorry.
- [71:15]
B
Sorry as fuck.
- [71:16]
A
Say sorry. I'm sorry. Don't listen, don't look at this. Say sorry.
- [71:20]
C
Stop.
- [71:20]
A
Say sorry.
- [71:21]
B
Sorry.
- [71:22]
A
Sorry, Uncle. I mean, that's, that's a good. Like, we haven't really talked about the Free Girl movement, which also added to the myth of early odds.
- [71:31]
B
Yeah, we'll get there. When we, when you get to Goblin a little bit.
- [71:35]
A
Oh, then like, then let's save it because I do have a. To answer Justin's question though, I actually didn't get sad because I realized that so many artists in the Odd Future Machine did not. A lot of them did, but a lot of them fell by the wayside. And I also don't think that it's lost on me that Earl's mother, a black woman who's an academic, who can understand a lot of the stuff that they're saying lyrically is not stuff that they're gonna wanna stand by when they grow older. And I do think that she probably saw in her son where she's just like, you're talented in a way that a lot of these other people that you are, they are talented. But as your mother, I can see that artistically you want to do something else and you're going this other way. So I do agree with you, Justin, that like Earl came back with a heaviness. But he has always in interviews been very vocal about being like, my mom wasn't the villain and like feeling a type of way that like a bunch of teenager, teenagers were acting like she was right. And I'm just like, no. I do think that that to me is like kind of like the height of parental love. Being like, I know my kid is talented. If he gets put in that machine, do we get the Earl that we get or does he just decide, fuck music, I'm never releasing it again?
- [73:02]
B
No, that's a good point.
- [73:03]
A
So what's your next nomination?
- [73:05]
B
So I'm gonna go with seven. Could have been odd toddlers, but something about them using like the, the MF Doom sample. I'm just like, this just sounds like a dude song with Tyler over it. So I'm gonna go seven with some
- [73:18]
A
matching pink panties, lipstick from my granny, sup on my hat. Like that friendly white red headed reminded me of Annie. She dino like my state of mind.
- [73:28]
B
So yeah, she understand I'm not gonna believe because I probably not going to pick this at the end of the episode. I like seven because it's like to your point earlier about what I like when Odd Future is at their best. It's just like that classic hip hop cypher's feel. And seven to me is like Tyler is rapping his ass off. It's a 50 plus bar verse. He's rapping for two and a half minutes straight. He's got multiple cadences and flows. The beat is more. It's not the darker stuff. It's more of a clean, Neptune's inspired beat, you know. So, again, I don't think it's going to get far. I'm going to mostly just shout it out, unless you have something else to say and we can move on.
- [74:07]
A
But I like Seven. But to your point, and like, we could wrap up on Bastard On. We were talking about it as we were kind of crafting this season, the. What is it called? The Wolf trilogy. I noticed that all three albums have the same problem, which is like, rough drafts, have good ideas, start really strong and end really weak. Seven is on the strong side. Seven is a really good song. And I'm like. I always wonder, I'm just like, would we think of Tyler's early music differently if he had the quality that he has now, which is being able to like, prune something? And so you're like, you don't have to like every song on the project. But when I listen to Igor, I'm like, every song belongs on this project. Where when I listen to Bastard, I'm like, five. So there's five songs that kind of follow this structure. And the rest of this is like a teenager fucking around.
- [75:06]
B
Yeah, I mean, Bastard, Goblin. Pretty rough to listen to. If you're trying to listen to it from start to finish without a break or a skip, it's pretty hard. I don't know, I mean, maybe there's. I mean, I'm sure there's some people that love it from start to finish, but all these early projects are on the longer side. Track list wise, duration, time, all easily over an hour. Plus, I don't know if I can expect 17, 18 year old kid to know how to trim an album down. I remember being that age and creating stuff, and it's really hard to let your babies go at that age because everything you make is kind of sick. Especially if you're Tyler and you're very gifted. And there are elements of each song that he probably really loved, even if the song as a whole fell flat or doesn't work, you know, structurally or whatever the problem is. So I can. I can see him kind of just throwing everything on there, especially with a bastard, which is like the accumulation of, you know, three years of, you know, it's. It's essentially, he said, I think it was from 16. 17, 18. Yeah, he's pulling from all those, you know, the classic first album thing where you have, quote unquote, your whole life to write the first album. And I think once, maybe a good transition into Goblin. Goblin, to me is like him trying to do the same length, you know, a longer album, but only having now two years to write it, instead of, you know, your whole life or whatever. And for me, Bastard holds up more than Goblin as an album. I don't know if you feel the same way.
- [76:38]
A
The highs on Goblin are higher, but the lows are way lower. And we will talk even maybe about Tyler, Tyler's thoughts now on Goblin, because he's talked about it, right? Yeah. So why don't we take a quick break, and when we get back, we will get into Goblin. All right, we're back. Time to talk about Goblin. Do you want to give the viewers a little bit of a background on where Tyler was the album?
- [77:09]
B
Yeah. So, Postmaster, we can go through this quickly, but post Bastard, obviously it didn't make a huge splash on Release, but throughout 2010, Odd Future is really starting to get some momentum on underground blogs and kind of message boards and stuff like we talked about. Earl sweatshirt in March 2010, releases his debut. We get the mixtape Radical Odd Future. In May, Tyler meets the Clancy's, Christian and Kelly, who start managing Tyler and Odd Future. And this kind of leads to them, really. I mean, all of 2010 is kind of like gas. And what ignites the fire is what I didn't realize is this all these three events that I'm about to rattle off all happened within five days of each other. So. February 11, 2011, Yonkers video premieres.
- [78:02]
A
Yep. I'm a fucking walking paradox.
- [78:05]
C
No, I'm not.
- [78:06]
A
Threesomes with a fucking triceratops reptar rapping as a mocking deaf rock star.
- [78:11]
B
Pretty much overnight viral sensation. Within weeks, Kanye's tweeting, it's the best music video of the year.
- [78:18]
A
Again, rotation on mtv. I remember this very well.
- [78:21]
B
Three days later, at least according to what's on the Internet, Tyler signs a one album deal with XL Yonkers, officially released as a single two days after that. So five days after Yonkers video premieres, they're on late night with Jimmy Fallon performing, not Yonkers, which is kind of surprising. They perform sandwiches, which is insane. Also, coincidentally, same day as that performance, Frank Ocean releases Nostalgia Ultra, his debut.
- [78:48]
A
And I also remember this is where Tyler jumps on Jimmy Fallon's back. A very, like, iconic moment.
- [78:55]
B
Well, okay, so what's great about that performance? We'll play a clip here. Insane. The Roots are playing the instrumental, so they. They take that instrumental to another level. To our conversation earlier about sandwiches on the record versus it live. Oh, my God, it's night and day.
- [79:24]
A
Yeah.
- [79:24]
B
Especially with this performance. So it's him and Haji just going crazy. Tyler's got the green ski mask on. He's jumping around. At some point, he runs off stage and goes to the guests and, like, shakes the guests up. But this is like the contrast of Tyler. It's like Tyler in a nutshell. This crazy, somewhat spooky, what some would say chaotic, spooky performance because they got that, like, lady and the. You remember the lady with the long hair, just, like, on stage going like this, like, super creepy. And then they're done performing and then Tyler takes off the mask and he's all smiles and he jumps on Jimmy Fallon's back.
- [79:54]
A
Jimmy seems a little, like, intrigued, but scared. He's like, what the fuck is happening?
- [79:58]
B
Because it's like chaos. But then it's like.
- [80:00]
A
It's just.
- [80:00]
B
At the end of the day, it's just this goofy kid under the green ski mask. So we get the two iconic things within five days. And then Tyler's just like, to the moon. To the moon. Like, pretty much overnight. Obviously, we know the story that leads up to it. He's already released a full project, but obviously Yonkers is what really sets him off. Fulfills the star potential that you talked about earlier. Do you remember the Yonkers moment?
- [80:24]
A
I remember all of this vividly. And to me, this is a perfect example of, like, what the music industry actually would become. Because around this time, virality was still, like, novel and new, and it was weird to see something that I was listening to just alone. And maybe some of my friends in high school would talk about it. But even then, like, I had friends in high school who liked rap music who were not on the blogs and were not listening to fucking odd future. And then all of a sudden, that's all anything was. And it's like, a few years after this, when I was actually gonna. When I was actually a music writer, you would get something like Lil Nas X and Old Town Road and you had an actual map for virality. But around this time, it was just like, oh, the Clancy's, I do think, had a very, very big hand in kind of like, making a launchpad to be like, all we need is a little bit of fire for this to become an inferno. But, yeah, it's. If I sound, like, kind of nostalgic for this moment, this was probably, like, the first and last time where this type of virality actually felt, like, novel and interesting. Because then after that, people would be following the map that our future had kind of laid out.
- [81:47]
B
Right.
- [81:48]
A
Should I. Should I get into some of the album facts?
- [81:50]
B
Yeah, let's do it.
- [81:51]
A
All right. So Tyler released the second album on May 10, 2011. The 15 song project produced three singles, Sandwiches, Yonkers and she. Tyler handled the bulk of the production with frequent collaborators showing up like Frank Ocean, Aji Damo and Mike G. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, selling 45k in its first week. Do you have any larger concepts of this album or is it more so kind of in line with.
- [82:18]
B
Yeah, it's pretty much what we said yet last time. I think what is interesting though, for people that don't know narratively the order of the trilogy is Bastard Wolf, Goblin. So Goblin is the end of the story for this is most people interpretation. I agree. After studying a little bit for this
- [82:38]
A
where Tyler reveals that TC is Tyler's conscious.
- [82:43]
B
Yeah, so. Yeah. So throughline again. Is Dr. TC Tyler having this conversation? This time it's inside of an insane asylum. After the events of Wolf happen, we realize on the song Window, Tyler kills all his friends, kills Frank Ocean, I think kills Haji. And that leads to the. The conflict of the last song where Dr. TC calls in medics to try to medicate Tyler. And then at the end, Dr. TC reveals that all the characters on the album, Tron, Cat, Ace, Wolf, Haley, all these people he's been rapping from different perspectives, are all in his head. Dr. TC is Tyler's conscience and all the storyline of Wolf trilogy, everything has been in Tyler's head the whole time. Which not quite the Sixth Sense twist
- [83:34]
A
ending, but you know, this is a story made by a teenager.
- [83:38]
B
Exactly. So again, nothing like too crazy deep. I think it is again, interesting that he's working conceptually from day one and following through on this trilogy, interconnected stories. Even if it's not the strongest interconnected trilogy, at least he's going for it. I mean, that's pretty ambitious on your first attempt at.
- [83:57]
A
Oh. I mean, even if we're talking about aesthetically, I do think that it's amazing to me that the aesthetic would grow over the Bastard Goblin, Wolf. But it's all the same. Whereas everything he's rapping about, the beats get better, the art gets better, but it's still the same world. But if we get to nominations, I think we should just get it out of the way. We both probably did pick Yonkers.
- [84:25]
B
Yeah, gotcha.
- [84:25]
A
Yonkers is. I want to talk to you about Yonkers. We talked a little bit about the video, but what is so interesting about the song is that it is both the track that ignites everything for Odd Future and Tyler, but it also casts such a shadow over his career. You can tell that Tyler ends up resenting it because it almost paints him into a box. Is the weird kid to your point? That's like eating the cockroach, saying all this wild shit. And even when he. He was on. On his radio show, he talked to Vince Staples about, like, essentially how he made this beat very, very quick. It was a joke of them joking about how, like, New York rappers rap, hence the title Yonkers. But once again, similar, like Ass Milk with Earl Sweatshirt. It is not lost on me that Tyler's biggest record up until that point and his biggest record for a while was him dumbing it down to such an extent that anybody could get it. Where it's like. It's weird to think about because, like, Yonkers doesn't have, like, a hook. And the beat isn't a traditional, like, beat that you would hear and be like, this is a hit. But when you put all the pieces together, I'm like, of course this would be your biggest hit. It's when it's you at your most pure, because you're not overthinking. You didn't overthink the beat. You're not overthinking the lyrics. It is just pure, unadulterated Tyler.
- [85:57]
B
And I think maybe why he didn't like being pigeonholed to this one song or moment is that the beat isn't really reflective of him. No, it doesn't sound like your classic Tyler the Creator beat. Like, all the elements that I talked about earlier, the beautiful chords, we get a synth riff, but it's not the chords. We don't really get any of those elements. I actually want to recreate the beat really quick for you, but I think that's part of it, too, where it didn't really showcase everything he was doing. He kind of got famous off of mockery, which, in his mind, I assume is pegging him as an incomplete artist. I'm not this guy. My world is bigger than this, More expansive color palette than this.
- [86:41]
A
But do you think. Cause to me, at this point, the knock against Tyler, and it would continue for a couple albums, is that he's an interesting producer, but he has not yet been able to jump over his influences. You can tell when he's trying to make a Pharrell beat. You can tell when he is trying to cobble together a song that sounds like an Eminem song. Yonkers, because he is so Blatant that he's kind of making fun of what he deems as a very, I don't know, like, caveman way of rapping. Of, like, this. Is that real New York? I'm like, Tyler, there's a reason why that shit works. You know what I mean? I'm just like, hey, people like PB and J sandwiches. I don't know what to tell you, man. Some things go great together.
- [87:33]
B
And his voice sounds great.
- [87:35]
A
It sounds incredible. And even the. The opening line, when we talk about some of the greatest opening lines. I'm fucking walking paradox. No, I'm not. Is once again in the same way that bastard as a song tells you everything you need to know about Tyler. I'm a fucking walking paradox. No, I'm not. Tells you everything you need to know about Tyler. And it's a joke. It's like the punchline is right there in one part. It's so funny. Like, this entire. His rapping on this. Not just his voice. His rapping is incredible on this.
- [88:08]
B
No, it's really good. I mean, even, like. So if you actually. I didn't realize this until sitting down with this. For this episode. That whole first verse is all. All the lines are paradoxes.
- [88:18]
A
Yes.
- [88:18]
B
So the next one. Threesomes with a fucking triceratops. Obviously, he's playing with the three horns of a triceratops and a threesome. But then he says, reptar. Reptar is not a triceratops. It's a T. Rex from Rugrats. So there's the. You know, there's a contradiction there. He says, I'm rapping. Rapping as a mocking deaf rock star. So deaf rock stars being paradox. Next line. Wearing synthetic wigs made of Anwar's dreadlocks. Anwar, his friend, had real dreadlocks, so they wouldn't be synthetic if he was wearing a wig made of weird. You know what I mean? So you go through this entire thing, I think. Yet what does he say about Sid having sex with men? Obviously, that's a paradox.
- [88:55]
A
I was gonna point that out because Tyler's becoming a better rapper in such a. Like, it's. It's funny with, like, kids, with teenagers, how fast they grow in anything, whether it is music or art or. Or sports. Because swallow the cinnamon. I' ma scribble this cinnamon shit. While Sid is telling me that she's been getting intimate with men.
- [89:14]
B
That. Just this rhyme scheme alone.
- [89:16]
A
Incredible. Like, he's becoming so good. Where it's like, I know I made a lot of fun on Bastard. Where it's Like, Earl just comes on the shit and he's like, earl is killing him. That, to me, reminds me of, like, an Earl bar, where the internal rhyme and how he's getting it off. Of course, as we get through this, this project, we're going to be like. We're going to keep pointing out times where we're like, oh, no, Tyler can really rap Yonkers. To me, even though it's as a joke, he's actually showing you, like, oh, I'm kind of a good rapper.
- [89:43]
B
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Could I. Because he said he made it in the beat in five minutes, I actually believe him because I want to just very quickly walk you through.
- [89:51]
A
Walk me through it.
- [89:52]
B
So there is. Justin will remember this, but there is. It used to be. Maybe it's still around, but no one uses it. There used to be a music program called Reason. Did you own Reason?
- [90:03]
C
I never used Reason. I'm familiar with Reason. I had friends who used Reason. I was more of an FL studio. Don't call it Fruity Loop, Scott.
- [90:12]
B
Okay, so when you get a program like Reason, it comes with, like, stock sounds. So essentially, I think every element of this song is a stock sound on Reason. So the main quote, unquote sample, that iconic kind of weird sound, comes from a set pack that comes with Reason. It's an FX pack. So it's just like random weird sounds. So I pulled a couple of the sounds that would be. If you're just pressing keys on this sample pack, you'd find stuff like this, just. Just. Just random like this. And then one of them just happens to be that. So all he does is just. It's just straight 8th notes, that one sound. But I think why. I think why he recognized this as having that New York quality. If you listen to the sound closely, when you trigger it, that's when it starts. That's not the peak of the sound. It kind of rolls into the sound. So the peak is offbeat. So listen kind of ramps up quick like that. And so when you repeat it, you get that natural, like, slump, you know, that is associated with, you know, J. Dilla, obviously, as is.
- [91:27]
A
I mean, even when you listen to that, you want to know what it reminds me of is like. Because I lived in New York for a while is when a subway is, like, overhead, like, and you're seeing it go. And it's that.
- [91:39]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [91:41]
A
When you repeat it, it's like a very, like, staccato, like. And that's when that just now reminded me. I'm like, oh, it reminds Me of the subway, like, going above, above.
- [91:49]
B
Okay, well. So like that. That natural slump when you put a straight beat to it is what. That's where the magic is. It's that. I mean, it's automatically syncopated and just, like, so groovy. There's no hi hat either. It's so simple. And so when he comes in, his voice is just so crystal clear. And then the only. Really, I mean, there's some piano chords towards the end of the song that are pretty buried in the mix that are very Tyler. But the only, like, Tyler thing, quote unquote, about the song is the bass line. Because early in his music, he's doing a lot. He essentially goes straight for dissonance because he wants that dark kind of haunting quality. So he's using this interval a lot. It's called a minor second. It's basically the two closest keys on a keyboard. If you play them together, you get that real crunchy dissonance like this. And so the bass line is just a minor second spread out. Okay. So it's just under this kind of whatever you want. How you want to describe the main beat. You do have this kind of menacing quality that's pretty iconic of Tyler's early work. And so when he put it together, It's just kind of magic. I don't. I actually come to really like this beat.
- [93:06]
A
I love this beat. Not only is it magic, I do think that it speaks to what maybe I miss a little bit about Tyler, which is the simplicity. As he gets better at being a producer, everything gets bigger. He gets better at controlling his voice. He gets better at as song structure. But there is just something so magical about it. A beat he makes in, like 15 minutes, right? And just straight rapping over it. And just because he doesn't. To me, he doesn't even, like, really rap over this type of dark sound as much. Even when we get to wolf, like, everything start, like, it becomes a lot brighter and a lot more in your face, right? And this, to me is. I'm just like, nah. I do miss when Tyler is just rapping over just, like, grungy.
- [93:56]
B
Yeah. How do you feel about this song, Justin? Are you a fan of Yonkers?
- [94:00]
C
Oh, yeah, Yeah, I love it. I might be getting ahead and I'm not going to ask you guys to respond to this yet, but I don't know if it's a song that I personally would choose to exemplify Tyler, right? But every time it's on, like, listening to it a lot. This weekend, I restarted it, like, 10 times times. Like, I have always liked this song.
- [94:18]
B
Yeah.
- [94:19]
C
And I think this was the song that made a lot of those old heads I was referring to, like, kind of, like, perk up and be like, huh? Kind of like this song. But I'm feeling a little uncomfortable. I don't know what's going on here.
- [94:33]
A
Hey, Gunkers is going to go far. I don't want, like. No, I don't want to, like, spoil anything. I've come around from being like, oh, Yonkers is cool. Like, being feeling like, oh, Yonkers is great. Like, Yonkers is cool. Back to, like. I don't know. I like his early shit better. Like, Yonkers is.
- [94:54]
B
It's really good. It's really. And the video, obviously is iconic. It's. It's age for me. It's aged very well. It feels like a cultural artifact. Put it in a museum. This represents a time, you know?
- [95:05]
A
Yeah.
- [95:06]
B
Okay, so that. Who's nominated? Was that your nomination?
- [95:08]
A
I think both of us nominated. To me, I was like, when we talk about Goblin, you probably have the quote. I might have it in here. He did an interview with GQ where he did not disown a lot of the album, but he was like. He listed all the songs that he thought were good and the rest. And I'm just like, yeah, this album, the highs are high. Some of the songs on here, I was like, yeah, you had to get this shit together fast, bro. Do you want. Do you. Who wants to nominate the next song? Because to me, it's super easy.
- [95:43]
B
Well, for me, I don't know if we have the same song, because to me, there's a clear number two. It's she.
- [95:55]
A
Get back, rush out the shower, and you touch yourself after hours. Ain't no man allowed in your bedroom. You're sleeping.
- [96:05]
B
That's not. That's not number. Your number two.
- [96:09]
A
I hate she.
- [96:10]
B
Wait, what?
- [96:11]
A
I hate. I've always hated she.
- [96:14]
B
What? You. Even Frank's parts, golden rubbers in these denim pockets.
- [96:20]
A
Stinky still. You get like, you. You pitch me on. Wait, Justin, Am I crazy? I remember. I. I know some, like. I know odd future fans like she. I remember when this came, I was like, this is fucking way.
- [96:32]
C
I don't have a horse in this race. I don't have strong feelings about she. The odd future heads are going to kill you, though. They're going to kill you. She is like, one of the ones for them.
- [96:44]
A
It is a perfect example to me of people thinking that Tyler and Frank have a lot of great chemistry together.
- [96:51]
B
I would say the chemistry, okay, this is. But this is the knock against she is also what makes it great is that the moment Frank Ocean comes on this album, you're like, song structure.
- [97:02]
A
Yeah.
- [97:03]
B
Melody, a fully formed artist. Like, it's just like a breath of fresh air. And a way. Not no knock against Tyler's this album. But, like, you can tell at this point in their careers. This is when Frank Ocean's writing Channel Orange. Frank is just on another level at this point.
- [97:18]
A
And he's even said that where he's just like, in an interview, they're asking, like, how did he meet Frank? And he was like, yo. Frank was like an older brother figure. He was signed to Def Jam at the time. He was picking me up in his Beamer. Like, he. At that point, he was, like, putting me onto restaurants and ways to live where it's like, even if Frank wasn't rich at that point, he was writing for other artists. And I do think it's to your point. It's not lost on me that she is an actual song. Like, Yonkers is a song to me. She is a song to me. A lot of these are sketches, so I'm being a little bit of an asshole. I think a lot of people like she, because it is Tyler forecasting where he would get to, which is just like, I actually need to learn how to make a pop song.
- [98:04]
B
That's part of the reason why I nominated it. Because what I think it shows is that Tyler's production, even by this point, is very strong. It's not even close to where he would go. But the chord progression of she is Beautiful. Like, it works technically. There's some interesting things. If I have time, I can point out about it. But then you bring in an artist as fully formed as Frank, doing a thing that Tyler cannot do, which is sing.
- [98:31]
A
Yeah.
- [98:32]
B
And you see it all of a sudden, it opens your mind to the brilliance of Tyler's production. That, to me, I don't really actually like Tyler's verses. That's the knock against this song. And to your point about them not having chemistry, they don't really, to me, sound great on this song together.
- [98:49]
A
Frank sounds good on this song.
- [98:51]
B
Frank sounds great on the song. Tyler, I'm just kind of indifferent about. But I think Tyler, to me, is as much a producer as he is a rapper. And you can kind of make the case that he's more of a producer than a rapper. And I think this exemplifies if he were giving songs, his production to Other people like a Frank. I think we would have earlier on seen him in a different light because he is doing complex chord progressions. Even at this point, the instrumentation, still not perfect, but, you know, she is a world. You know, you can picture it in your mind. And when you bring in someone as great as Frank, it maximizes the potential of the production in a way that I don't think Tyler was ready to yet. He can do it in pockets and in short spurts, but rarely on Goblin or even Bastard can he really capture our attention from start to finish on a song. He does it every once in a while, but I think the knock against these early albums is that the songwriting is just not great. It's hard to listen to a lot of these songs from start to finish after you've kind of gotten the initial vibe of it, you know, I'm always kind of reaching for the next. A lot of these songs, you know, once you're done with the first verse, I kind of get it. And the song's not going to really go much place anywhere else. So that's kind of why I'm nominating it more as a showcase of production. Then I. Then I think the song works conceptually. It's interesting. Like, they're playing these different characters. Tyler's the stalker. Frank's playing this neighbor figure that moves in with this girl that this stalker is stalking.
- [100:21]
A
It's a very cinematic song.
- [100:23]
B
Yeah, very much.
- [100:23]
A
When you, like, listen to it, you're like, to your point, this is. When I listen to this song, I'm like, yeah, this is a kid who wants to produce for Justin Bieber and wants to collaborate with Charlie Wilson. This is this in the same way that, like, Yonkers, I think, actually has a lot of, like, what Tyler is good at. She is more of an example of, oh, this is actually what you want to do, where it's like you actually want to be singing the Frank Ocean part.
- [100:49]
B
Exactly. You know, and he hasn't figured out yet on this album. He does it a little bit on Wolf and definitely on Cherry Bomb. The hack that he comes up with that makes an album like Flower Boy Work, makes an album like Igor Work is that he becomes a master of blending his voice with someone else's.
- [101:04]
A
Yeah.
- [101:05]
B
And it's like he could, because he can't carry it on himself. Like, probably the most. The most famous example of this is Earth Earthquake, where he brings in Charlie Wilson to accentuate his voice. And Frank's kind of doing that without Tyler being there, but that's kind of the hack that he eventually discovers. He's not quite there yet. So she. I think it's a great song. It's the one I. One of the ones I really like. Like, off this project. I'm surprised. A little bit surprised. But where are you going, then, for your nomination?
- [101:33]
A
Ah, Sandwiches.
- [101:48]
B
Sandwiches is so the album version of the live. Live version. Come on.
- [101:51]
A
All right.
- [101:51]
B
The L. Does the album version hold up?
- [101:54]
A
The album version of most of these songs don't hold up. Like. Like, my memory of most of these songs is just like. It's way better when you perform this live.
- [102:03]
B
Seeing this song, like, I was watching some of the old, like, south by Southwest performances. Obviously, the. The. The iconic Jimmy Fallon wolf gang.
- [102:11]
A
It's the wolf. The wolf dad is the. It's. But also it's so funny because so many of, like, their core. Like, even though Tyler is not necessarily great at song structure or hooks or choruses, he does know what makes something infectious to hear. He does know how to make anthems where it's like, to me, an anthem is different than, like, a catchy song, right? Where it's, like, just repeating, like, wolf gang. Wolf gang is just like. There's something about how those words hit. Kill people, burn shit, fuck school. A lot of Tyler's early music to me is like. He's taking stuff that, like, kids scrawl on a desk in detention and just being like, that's a hook. And like, that, to me, is what Sandwiches is. I also, to me, Tyler is at his best when he is in on the joke. And it's such a funny thing with a fighter. Mr. I don't give a who cries about his daddy in a blog because his music sucks. Well, you up? I truthfully, I had enough. And from what papers I'm a rebel. I'm ash and blunts. Once again, Tyler is. Even if Tyler is maybe not perfect at maintaining that energy throughout a whole song. That's such a fun. Like, that's such good rapping. Yeah, I. To your point, Sandwiches, even. I remember I had the CD of Goblin. I even though, like, I liked a lot of Tyler's music and someone like, what the fuck is this? I was a kid who went out and bought Goblin, and to your point, I remember putting it in in my, like, car, and I was like, why does it sandwiches sound like the YouTube of them? How does radicals give me the energy? And I'm picking sandwiches because I love the song. Listening to it again, it felt like being like, 15, 16, 17 again. I get what your knock is against it because I had the same knock when I was listening to my, like, in the car where I was just like, damn, this song is not as great without, like, a bunch of kids.
- [104:31]
B
Yeah. All right, so that's it for the nominations then, right?
- [104:38]
A
Yo, that's it for the nomination. Also, Shout Out. I'm going to keep peddling this Haji Beats. I don't know if he's with Nelly Furtado anymore, but, like, shout out Haji Beats. Put respect on his name. Some of their best songs have Haji on them for a reason.
- [104:51]
B
Is there anything that we. Anything that we missed from this that people are going to get mad that we didn't even give an honorable mention? Radicals, I think iconic for all the reasons that we just kind of talked about Sandwiches for. It's kind of in that same.
- [105:06]
A
But Sandwiches to me is a better song than Radicals. Even though Radicals was the like, when you read all of the old reviews of the live shows or all of the pearl clutching of like, oh, my God, what's happened to America? Radicals, I don't know what it was about. Kill people, burn shit, fuck school. That got people so scared. But, like, looking back on it, I'm like, yeah, that was such a quaint top. Could you imagine us getting mad at an artist for saying this? I was like, all right, get out of here.
- [105:43]
B
It's funny too, going back because I was watching some old, like, news clips of early odd future when they were coming up. There's like, interview some. I forgot whatever news program was featuring them. They're as in that same way of, like, controversial group. They're interviewing kids at the time and they're like, you know, do you think that they mean it? And the kids are like, no. Fuck no. Like, it was so obvious to them that it was exactly that it wasn't. Yes. Nothing, really.
- [106:08]
A
If you were on Twitter and Tumblr in high school or college at the time, there was a, like, rolling eyes thing where I'm just like, guys, come on. This is. Not only do they not mean it, you're uncool because you don't get the joke right. We should say this. I'm glad we didn't belabor this point at all. I do not co sign a lot of the abhorrent lyrics that are on these records, but I do think it's important to contextualize in where Tyler was at in his career, where we were at as a society. And also, Tyler has never come out talking about, like, exactly what his identity is, but I think it's safe Enough to say that he is a queer artist. And I do think it's important to talk about these records because I'm just like, he's figuring it out. And that's why I liked going back. I was just like, oh, he was always figuring it out. And even if he did not know how to say it, he always said it in an entertaining way. And I just cannot say that about most art that I ingest now.
- [107:17]
B
Okay, so let's get into the final section of the episode. So this is where Charles and I have to select the one song that we're taking from each album into the grand finale Royal Rumble. So eventually, all the songs that we pick, one song per episode or one song per album for each of us are going to duke it out in a royal rumble. And that's how we'll whittle down to the last song standing. Right now, we are picking songs off of. Let's start with Bastard first. No one won the quiz section, so we don't really have so many. That's going to choose first on what you want to take from Bastard.
- [107:51]
A
I feel like this is.
- [107:53]
B
It's not. Yeah, we don't need to belabor it too much, I think.
- [107:56]
A
I think it is very, very easy to. Who wants to go first?
- [108:01]
B
I'll go first because I want Bastard. I want title track.
- [108:04]
A
If you wouldn't have picked Bastard, you just. It has to. It's one of his most important songs. I'm gonna pick French just because I love French. I think Tyler still loves French. It speaks to early our future French. We don't have to belabor it now.
- [108:23]
B
I'll say that means in fairness, then you get to pick off a Goblin. First.
- [108:28]
A
We gotta go with Yonkers. Someone has to pick Yonkers. One of us was gonna pick Yonkers, I think, because Justin did remind me that people love she.
- [108:39]
B
Oh, okay. You're gonna be. I was gonna say you gotta be okay with me picking Chi because I
- [108:43]
A
think French does what sandwiches does.
- [108:47]
B
Yeah.
- [108:47]
A
You know what I mean? And I wanted something that reflected that early, odd future energy. And if it wasn't gonna be Sandwiches, it was gonna be French. I just do think Yonkers is just. We don't have to talk. People know why we picked it. It's the best song, I think, of all the songs we picked, it's easily the best song by far so far.
- [109:09]
B
I think so. All right, so we got our picks from each album. We need to explain the coach's challenge. So every season, Justin gets a coach's challenge, which means that he has one pick out of all the Tyler albums where he can come in and interject and say, hey, you guys picked Bastard in French. But this song really needs to be in the discussion. I'm using my coach's challenges. I'm going to nominate this song. So, Justin, do you want to use your coach's challenge for any of these albums so far? Is there anything that we missed that needs to be to be mentioned?
- [109:45]
C
What if I just came in and said, yeah, we got to use this for Transylvania?
- [109:48]
B
Geez, we got to get Tron Cat in here.
- [109:51]
A
Oh, both. Both songs that I kept skipping. I'm like, I need. Like, I ended up listening to them. I'm like, I hate Transylvania and I hate Trump.
- [110:00]
C
Neither of those are the worst song on that album. BSD exists.
- [110:03]
A
Yeah. Not going to use it on Ass Milk.
- [110:08]
C
Yeah, I'm not going to use it on Ass Milk. Not going to use it on Blow. VCR is a song that we skipped over in the bastard discussion. That. That's another one that the. In the she category that the fans really love that I personally really like Nightmare. Before we recorded, I played it for Cole, and Cole was. Did not really with it. It's just, you know, it's just another song.
- [110:38]
B
It's fine.
- [110:39]
A
Kind of.
- [110:39]
B
Yeah.
- [110:39]
C
Yeah. But, yeah, I. I think that I'm gonna save the coach's challenge on this one.
- [110:46]
B
Smart.
- [110:46]
A
Hell, yeah.
- [110:48]
B
Is that it?
- [110:49]
A
That's it. Did it. Longer episode. But these are very important. Important.
- [110:55]
B
A lot of. A lot of setup.
- [110:57]
A
Yes.
- [110:57]
B
So next. So next we're gonna do another combined episode. We'll do Wolf and Cherry Bomb together.
- [111:03]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [111:03]
B
All right. So thanks to producer Justin. Thanks to our engineer, Jason Kevin Pooler, video editor. Theme music by Bureaucratic as always. Hell, yeah. We'll see you next week.
- [111:25]
A
All right, we're back. This is one of my favorite favorite segments. We always have a cultural exchange. Every single. Every single season, you give me something that is important to you. It could be movies, tv, books, whatever. I do the same. And we try to bond on.
- [111:45]
B
We really bonded over these five seasons. I feel like we. When we started out, like, we kind of barely knew each other.
- [111:51]
A
Yes. And now we are best buds.
- [111:53]
B
Yeah.
- [111:53]
A
So you asked me. You kind of picked.
- [111:59]
B
I did.
- [112:00]
A
For me, you're just like, hey, I'm trying to kind of, like, get into anime and that whole world. Charles, I know you're a fan.
- [112:07]
B
I'm starting to get a little bit more people that don't know I'm Japanese. Part Japanese. My mom's Japanese. I'm trying to get a little bit more in touch with that side of my. My history. And you're being a big anime fan. Yes.
- [112:18]
A
You're going to.
- [112:19]
B
This entire season, you're going to.
- [112:20]
A
Just not what some call me a weeb.
- [112:23]
B
Wait, I don't even know what a weeb is. What's a weeb?
- [112:26]
A
Weeb is a stan. For. For. For anime. I would say you don't want to be a Weeb, but maybe I am. And what I'm going to start you off with Miyazaki, but not a movie. Okay, everybody, anime, like, start with Miyazaki, but instead of starting with a movie. One of my favorite films, just in general is called the Kingdom of Dreams and Madness. It is a documentary where it follows Miyazaki making what was then supposed to be one of his final films, the Wind Rises. And I wanted to start you there because it shows the process of how difficult it is to make anime, especially at a time where Pixar is coming up. So hand drawn animation is something that is being lost. And you're watching a master in the later stage of his career. The full process, from drawing storyboards to working with the voice actors. And I love this film so much because it doesn't just show you what makes Miyazaki such a singular talent. I think it shows what makes anime such a gargantuan undertaking, especially as the years go on. What makes it so beautiful. To me, I think a lot of people like anime's just Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon. And I'm like, yeah, there's that. But there is also just in the same way that you have Mozart or Beethoven, I think Miyazaki is someone where you're like, oh, someone had to literally carve this out of stone. And it is incredible that we even that this even got made and put on a screen. So I would start with that just to open you up to like. It shows you the full process from beginning to end of how you make an anime film.
- [114:15]
B
Okay, I do. So next time I'll give you my first official assignment. I do have a mini assignment for you.
- [114:21]
A
What's your mini assignment?
- [114:23]
B
So we've talked a lot about youthful music.
- [114:26]
A
Okay.
- [114:27]
B
Tyler making music. 17:18. I'm going to reveal to you the music that I made at 1819 years old. It's a band called People can Go listen to it if they really want. Someone uploaded some of our music to YouTube. It's called Red Top Road is the band name. It was a indie rock band that I joined, they existed with a little bit before I joined. I was a senior in high school going to Elgrove High. Indie rock. We were trying to be at the drive in, essentially, is how I describe it. But the song I want you to listen to is called Deadbolt Rodeo.
- [115:04]
A
Okay.
- [115:04]
B
The first song on our last EP that we put out and come back with your thoughts.
- [115:11]
A
This is, like, fucking crisp. Hell, yeah. Are you still in touch with the members of the band?
- [115:18]
B
Yeah. I mean, not like every day, but I still see the singer out in Sacramento a lot. My best friend Jaden was a bass player in the band, and he lives on the other side of the country now. But, yeah, we're still close. How I think it holds, I don't know. I mean, I'm biased, but I haven't listened to it a long time.
- [115:35]
A
And I was like, it holds up.
- [115:36]
B
It's like, let me. Let me make sure this holds up. Before, I said to Charles, I'm like,
- [115:40]
A
okay, it's not bad. Wait, are we gonna play some of this?
- [115:42]
B
We'll play it. Yeah, we'll play a little bit.
- [115:44]
A
All right. Hell, yeah. Guys, we will see you next week.
- [115:48]
C
Cool.