Tyler, The Creator has long established himself as an outspoken artist, and he wasn’t afraid to let the world know exactly how he feels about the current state of music journalism in his latest interview with Nardwuar.
The former Odd Future rapper spoke with “The Human Serviette” at his Camp Flog Gnaw festival in Los Angeles last week, and during the conversation urged his fellow artists to talk about their actual music, rather than celebrity drama or gossip.
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In the process, Tyler threw shade at Hot Ones and Sneaker Shopping — popular YouTube series both created by Complex Media — citing them as examples of platforms where serious and in-depth music conversation goes to die.
“Music is my favorite thing and I could talk about it all day,” Tyler began. “But we’re at a point where a musician who you know for music is being interviewed on a platform about music, talking in detail about music — his passion and what he’s known for — and people are like, ‘Why does he keep doing that?’
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“But, you know, if I was on here gossiping or talking about so and so, who got beef, then people will feed into it. And it’s like, ‘No, we need to get back to talking about music.'”
He continued: “We need to stop fucking going sneaker shopping or fucking deep-throating hot wings for an hour. Talk about your album. Talk about music. Talk about the 15 songs that you guys have spent time to get mixed and mastered and put your heart into and produced and did all these things.
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“And then when the album comes out and it sells two copies, everyone’s confused. But it’s like, they don’t want to talk about the music or the album; they’d rather fucking go eat chicken wings and sneaker shopping.”
You can see his comments at the 13:30 mark below:
Hours after the interview was aired, Tyler, The Creator took to social media to clarify his comments and apologize to Hot Ones host Sean Evans.
“In the interview, I shared a thought about the lack of journalism in the music/artist that seldomly speak about the music and only gossip etc and used ‘Hot Ones’ as one of the two examples,” he wrote.
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“It comes off as having disdain towards the show which I don’t, but really it was to be used as a broader example that popped in my head while trying to make the point.”
He added: “I could’ve said one of the podcast/outlets that really pushes the more negative stuff but in the moment I didn’t. So sean you didn’t really deserve the energy that comes off, wasn’t my intention at all although ‘deep throating chicken’ sounds hilarious to me.
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“This will likely get most lost get lost while the clip continues to get tossed around, but at least a few of you will see this. wont change much since its out but yeah. really wish I used a different example, you seem like a sweet ol lady.”
Evans replied to Tyler, writing: “‘Deep throating chicken’ is a funny turn of a phrase, as always lifetime open invite to the show we’ll talk about music.”
Earlier this week, Tyler, The Creator made headlines after André 3000 revealed that he was among the first to hear his new solo album New Blue Sun during a visit to his home.
“So we’re sitting there and Frank [Ocean] just happened to drop by,” the OutKast legend told NPR. “So it’s us three sitting there listening to these three songs and I just kind of wanted to get an opinion.”
He continued: “Tyler was staring at this thing that he has in his house. Like, he’s a fan of travel suitcases and so he has a wall of like travel suitcases. And he was like, ‘Man, I’ve been trying to figure out how to configure these like Louis [Vuitton] suitcases.’
“And he was listening to one of the songs and he was like, ‘It sounds like you’re chasing a butterfly through a garden and I figured it out. It helped me to figure out how to do this.’ And I think Frank pointed out one of his favorite tracks out of the three.”
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“And I was just happy to hear that, ’cause I respect them as musicians,” he added. “Like new energy; they’re going for it, man. So I really respect their opinions.”
