‘Yonkers’: Tyler, the Creator’s greatest opening lyric
As Tyler, the Creator learned the hard way, being a troll is the easy option. It’s the coward’s way out of dealing with the world. One where you risk nothing by offering nothing and standing for nothing, yet still feel entitled to the time and energy of everyone around you. Deep down, you’re so certain of your own mediocrity that in a desperate attempt to be memorable without actually improving yourself, you annoy, upset or bully others.
Being too much of a craven little failure to even admit that much though, you take a smug sense of superiority in “triggering” people as if you’re some master manipulator and an incredibly common brand of worthless bellend. At their worst, Tyler and the rest of his Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All cohorts came across exactly like this.
When they rocketed onto the scene in 2008, it was very, very easy to write them off as a bunch of try-hard LA hipsters who’d learned all the wrong lessons from Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP and OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Shaving all the edges that gave those records such an artistically interesting trump card and adding a bunch of tired horrorcore cliches so middle-of-the-road even Insane Clown Posse would have cringed.
Then, the weirdest thing started to happen. As the 2010s dawned, the music started getting… good?! Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt joined the collective and began releasing their works, Syd started her own project, The Internet, and Tyler dropped one of the defining hip-hop singles of the 2010s—a work of utter, astonishing brilliance called ‘Yonkers’ that basically manages to sum up its own genius with its opening two lines.
How did ‘Yonkers’ put Tyler, the Creator on the map?
Over a loping, threatening beat and treated vocals, Tyler’s inimitable growl intones, “I’m a fucking walking paradox / No I’m not”. It’s the best, most memorable line in a song where the next lyric is about “threesomes with a fucking triceratops”. Where a little bit further along, you get shout-outs to Jesus Christ and Adventure Time along with, in a close second on the memorable lyric list, a threat to “stab Bruno Mars in his goddamn oesophagus”.
Just like how it put the rest of the decade on watch right off the bat, the song peaks with its opening line while still remaining magnificent for its entire running time. Why that line in particular, though? On a surface note, it’s still among the best jokes Tyler ever told on record. It is a note-perfect U-turn that shows just how profoundly clever you have to be in order to be that proudly dumb. As with every aspect of Tyler’s work, though, it goes much, much deeper than that. Tyler himself was a walking contradiction and arguably still is to this day.
A semi-closeted queer person who would later, in that very song, use several disgusting homophobic slurs was his style at the time. But he was also an artist who took his work dead seriously if it seemed like others weren’t and who would treat the whole thing like a joke if others did the same. However, he was nothing more than a product of his time and upbringing. He, of all people, would know his mindset was nothing out of the ordinary—he was part of a collective of artists that shared his vision. He was a walking fucking paradox; no, he wasn’t.
These were the first signs that Tyler was more than just a provocateur. Sure, the stunts were still there, as was that tiresome air of ironic detachment. However, for the first time, the infuriating air that all the derangement was covering up something very dark and very sharp was now the point of the art. Rather than shoud the deeper meaning of the song, the jokes on ‘Yonkers’ add to its seething, rage-fuelled atmosphere.
Its bile is directed at everyone, most of all at Tyler himself, and that is a part of its opening couplet. You can hear it in the way Tyler snaps the “No, I’m not” back at himself like he’s embodying the destructive, self-loathing part of his personality. It’s intense, it’s unforgettable, but it also can’t last. Fortunately, ‘Yonkers’ proved to be the start of a journey for Tyler. One that saw him seemingly become more at ease with himself and has since taken him to become one of the most compelling figures in modern popular music.
Every release since ‘Yonkers’ has revealed more about Tyler as an artist and a person. Rather than making him less interesting with more information, it’s deepened his presence in pop. At the time of writing, his most recent record, Chromakopia, cemented his position as the outsider’s choice for best in the game. Big enough to sell out arenas all over the world, yet whose music contains enough artistic heft and character for anyone to get lost in. Those who really paid attention to the first eight words of ‘Yonkers’, though, have seen every moment of this coming.
