skater kids, known as Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, that Tyler founded when he was just 16. Golf Wang, like Flog Gnaw, is a play on the phrase Wolf Gang-a nested series of inside jokes intended to delight the initiated and confound outsiders who don’t know that Wolf Gang refers to the ragtag collective of musicians, artists and assorted L.A. After a few blocks he reaches a salon called Lanny Nails, then curses loudly, because it’s gated shut.įive minutes later we’re back in the alley, a block from the restaurant, where Tyler stows his car in a lot behind Golf Wang’s flagship store. “Stop being f-ing weird.”) Two bottles of women’s perfume-something Tyler’s enjoyed wearing since he was a kid, sneaking spritzes from his mom’s supply-sit in the cup holders: Prada’s Infusion d’Iris and Chloë Sevigny’s Little Flower. (Which, for the record, is not cool: “I don’t give a f- how many albums you bought,” he says. Tyler’s a car guy, with a garage full of McLarens and Teslas, and his BMW is painted a lovely custom hue he asks me not to describe because he’s had problems with overly zealous kids getting so immersed in his universe that they try to sleuth out his license plate and follow him home. The alley spills us onto Beverly Boulevard. Whether people like them or not.” Junya Watanabe Man coat, $1,725, Comme des Garçons, 520 West 22nd Street, New York, Golf Wang T-shirt, $35, and scarf, $60, golfwang.com, Lacoste hat, $60, lacoste.com But that’s not why I do what I do,” says Tyler. “I’ll always be grateful to him for making me who I am,” she says.ĬREATIVE DRIVE “Money is great. Tyler’s long been one of her biggest influences. “In my mind, I always thought playing Flog Gnaw would mean I’d made it,” says the 17-year-old pop phenomenon Billie Eilish, who performed at the festival in 2018. To be a fan of Tyler, the Creator isn’t just to stream his catchiest songs, it’s to immerse oneself in an ever-expanding, interconnected universe of his own eccentric construction-and his fans have come to include both elders he’s long worshiped, likeĪnd Dave Chappelle, and a younger generation of funny, angry, irreverent kids who came of age looking up to him. He’s pursued unlikely obsessions such as developing a Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams flavor called Snowflake and a signature Golf le Fleur scented candle and he’s built an annual L.A.-based music festival, named Camp Flog Gnaw, that’s grown big enough since its 2012 debut to take over Dodger Stadium two years running. He’s designed a number of apparel lines, on his own (under the Golf Wang name) and in partnership with Converse and Lacoste (under the name Golf le Fleur), in which he scrambles the line between streetwear and more rarefied fashion, selling both graphic T-shirts and dainty clutches, bold hoodies and chunky cardigans. He’s maintained that degree of involvement even as his output has sprawled into what he now describes, not unreasonably, as “my empire.” In addition to music-making, Tyler (born Tyler Okonma) has helped devise three different TV shows at the millennial-targeting cable channels Adult Swim (Loiter Squad, The Jellies!) and Viceland (Nuts + Bolts). Magazine, Styling by Gabriella Karefa-Johnson “Two clothing s and all types of stuff.” Yesterday he hunkered down and worked on show mixes, because “every tour, I make versions of my songs that are different from the albums.” It’s the sort of granular task another artist might delegate, but Tyler, the Creator is not the delegating type: Since the start, he’s produced every single song he’s put out, designed every bit of album artwork and had a major hand in conceptualizing, directing, editing and color-timing every one of his music videos.Ĭampbell Addy for WSJ. “I gotta knock out so much stuff,” he explains, hurtling past back-alley dumpsters. With it, Tyler has finally ascended into the ranks of the kinds of left-field pop auteurs he adored growing up -“the André 3000s and Missy Elliotts,” as he puts it, “who allowed my 9-year-old mind to understand that there’s no boundaries at all.” In a few days he’ll head out on a two-month IGOR Tour, during which he’ll wear a tight suit and a blond bowl-cut wig onstage-because he’s a showman-and headline a bunch of North American arenas, Madison Square Garden included, with a few London shows in between. It sold 74,000 copies in its first week and racked up 123 million song streams, debuting at No. The album tells the story of an ill-starred love triangle between Tyler, a guy he’s crushing on and the woman that guy is dating. He recently put out his fifth studio album, IGOR, an audacious jumble of off-kilter hip-hop, warped soul and plush jazz chords. A decade into his career, Tyler is enjoying his biggest year yet. on a Sunday in August, and Tyler, 28, has been up since 6:30 a.m.-in part because he’s an early riser generally and because he’s got a lot to get done.
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