Tyler the creator is a American rapper, record producer and graphic designer. On December 25, 2009, Tyler self-released his first album, Bastard.
His third album Wolf is scheduled for release in 2012. It will contain some of the instrumentals that Tyler has been making since he was young.
I will be analysing Tyler's first single off his second album Goblin, called Yonkers.
Here is the video I'm looking at:
To help me break down the video I will be using Andrew Goodwins theory on music videos.
He classified music videos into 3 main types;
He classified music videos into 3 main types;
Literal
Amplifying
& Disjunctive.
The music video was directed by Tyler himself and he has explained that the song is meant to be a “conversation” between himself and his white, evil, swagged-out alter ego Wolf Haley
One thing to notice about the song is that every line contradicts himself, and it is completely full of paradoxes.
The video starts off the with the title of the song, in a bright green and pink colour, over this we hear the basic beat to the song.
The screen goes white and we see a silhouette of Tyler, there is then heavy use of focus pulls as Tyler shifts in and out of focus, the effect seems to contrast with the drumbeat, filling the gaps in between. He sits very still and we see him as a profile.
Suddenly he moves and begins to rap.
"I'm a fucking walking paradox, no I'm not"
The video accompanying these lyrics is just Tyler performing, in this case I would perhaps suggest the video could be considered of the amplifying type
This particular line of the song is infact, itself, a paradox.
While tyler is performing in the video he makes certain actions and gesture that would suggest the lyrics he is rapping.
"Threesomes with a fucking triceratops, Reptar"
Here he uses his arm to lift up and use hand actions to indicate a large mammal eating, such as in his lyrics, it could be a triceratops. Small lines like these gives Tyler's video a literal view.
"Swallow the cinnamon, I'm a scribble this sin and shit"
This particular line of the song is infact, itself, a paradox.
While tyler is performing in the video he makes certain actions and gesture that would suggest the lyrics he is rapping.
"Threesomes with a fucking triceratops, Reptar"
Here he uses his arm to lift up and use hand actions to indicate a large mammal eating, such as in his lyrics, it could be a triceratops. Small lines like these gives Tyler's video a literal view.
Tyler sings these lyrics at around 39seconds in. I believe in these lyrics he is referring to the cinnamon challenge, in which people are required to eat a spoonful of cinnamon in 40 seconds, it does cause most people who try it to be sick, and 54 seconds into his video Tyler is sick, there is no sound effect to this, but it is nasty to watch.
In many rap songs and videos children cartoon channels such as Nickelodeon's are mentioned often.
Tyler doesn't actually perform the line in his video and a backing track picks up the lyrics, Tyler picks up his performance at the next lyrical line.
"I went home for some damn adventure time"
Adventure time is a children program, and due to the abstract nature and the ridiculous narrative of the stories and animation it is very popular among drug users which watch the show while tripping, to give themselves the laughs.
This corresponds with the next line "I slipped myself some pink xannies" which is an anti-anxiety prescription medication often misused for recreational purposes
At this point in the video Tyler starts to under his shirt, there's no indication as to why he does this, but this verse is about Tyler using drugs, and from 1.50 Tyler starts to get much more erratic and unpredictable in his actions, which perhaps simulates the type of behaviour Tyler would exhibit while on the "Pink Xannies" he spoke about earlier in the song.
In the next couple of lines of the song Tyler takes a stab at artists involved in the bland, uncreative culture of pop music such as B.O.B, Bruno Mars and Hayley Williams, all three of which are mentioned in this song.
"What you think of Hayley Williams?
Fuck her, Wolf Haley robbing them
I’ll crash that fucking aeroplane that faggot nigger B.O.B is in
and stab Bruno Mars in his god-damn oesophagus"
While singing the line "I'll crash that fucking aeroplane that faggot nigger B.O.B is in" Tyler simulates a plan crashing with his arm movements, which is another literal feature in Tyler's video.
Tyler takes off his shirt and throws it at the screen, at which Tylers position is reset.
We zoom in on Tylers face and eyes, and it appears his pupils are enlarged and the white in his eyes has turned black, which perhaps could be indicating further drug use. During the section of the video that is zoomed in on his face Tyler moves around alot with "swag" it appears to be very over the top and emphasised, which I thought could mean he is making fun of the polished rap stars, or pop culture artists he dissed earlier.
At 2.26 Tylers nose starts to bleed, which we know very commonly happens when sniffing cocaine, this is yet another reference to drug use in Tylers video.
Drug use is widely spoke about in rap music, and leads me to question why rap music has gone from condemning drug use to infact now glorifying it. Drugs are routinely mentioned in raps by artists such as 50 Cent, Eminem and Method Man.
Tyler refers to drugs in this song, its difficult to notice because its coded and written in such a way as to disguise its true meaning, but when we place the song with video we notice the drug references alot more because they are almost spelt out to us. It seems although drugs for recreational use are condemned artists such as Tyler aren't scared about glorifying their use of the drugs.
I feel this projects Tylers star image as being a bit of a hard man, gangsta and drug abuser, it seems he hasn't tried to polish his image and perfect it, but he has exacerbated his image, to make himself to seem worse and more 'grunge' than he actually is, the chances are Tyler doesn't use any drugs and he just raps this so he can relate to his target audience.
A noose comes down from the ceiling and Tyler puts it around his neck, he stands on the chair he has been sat on all the way through the video and he hangs himself, which is a very abrupt ending to the video.
His feet continuously wiggle and move around while the camera is still abruptly going in and out of focus, we then zoom in on the stool, the main downbeat to the song continues until the end of the video at 3 minutes.
The main beat is the same all the way through the song and does not change, Tyler simply just raps over a continuous beat, however at 2.27 a tiny melody comes in to add to the downbeat, this starts as soon as Tyler stops singing.
This part of the video could also refer to the next line in the song:
"Jesus called, he said he's sick of the disses"
In many rap songs and videos children cartoon channels such as Nickelodeon's are mentioned often.
Tyler doesn't actually perform the line in his video and a backing track picks up the lyrics, Tyler picks up his performance at the next lyrical line.
"I went home for some damn adventure time"
Adventure time is a children program, and due to the abstract nature and the ridiculous narrative of the stories and animation it is very popular among drug users which watch the show while tripping, to give themselves the laughs.
This corresponds with the next line "I slipped myself some pink xannies" which is an anti-anxiety prescription medication often misused for recreational purposes
At this point in the video Tyler starts to under his shirt, there's no indication as to why he does this, but this verse is about Tyler using drugs, and from 1.50 Tyler starts to get much more erratic and unpredictable in his actions, which perhaps simulates the type of behaviour Tyler would exhibit while on the "Pink Xannies" he spoke about earlier in the song.
In the next couple of lines of the song Tyler takes a stab at artists involved in the bland, uncreative culture of pop music such as B.O.B, Bruno Mars and Hayley Williams, all three of which are mentioned in this song.
"What you think of Hayley Williams?
Fuck her, Wolf Haley robbing them
I’ll crash that fucking aeroplane that faggot nigger B.O.B is in
and stab Bruno Mars in his god-damn oesophagus"
While singing the line "I'll crash that fucking aeroplane that faggot nigger B.O.B is in" Tyler simulates a plan crashing with his arm movements, which is another literal feature in Tyler's video.
Tyler takes off his shirt and throws it at the screen, at which Tylers position is reset.
We zoom in on Tylers face and eyes, and it appears his pupils are enlarged and the white in his eyes has turned black, which perhaps could be indicating further drug use. During the section of the video that is zoomed in on his face Tyler moves around alot with "swag" it appears to be very over the top and emphasised, which I thought could mean he is making fun of the polished rap stars, or pop culture artists he dissed earlier.
At 2.26 Tylers nose starts to bleed, which we know very commonly happens when sniffing cocaine, this is yet another reference to drug use in Tylers video.
Drug use is widely spoke about in rap music, and leads me to question why rap music has gone from condemning drug use to infact now glorifying it. Drugs are routinely mentioned in raps by artists such as 50 Cent, Eminem and Method Man.
Tyler refers to drugs in this song, its difficult to notice because its coded and written in such a way as to disguise its true meaning, but when we place the song with video we notice the drug references alot more because they are almost spelt out to us. It seems although drugs for recreational use are condemned artists such as Tyler aren't scared about glorifying their use of the drugs.
I feel this projects Tylers star image as being a bit of a hard man, gangsta and drug abuser, it seems he hasn't tried to polish his image and perfect it, but he has exacerbated his image, to make himself to seem worse and more 'grunge' than he actually is, the chances are Tyler doesn't use any drugs and he just raps this so he can relate to his target audience.
A noose comes down from the ceiling and Tyler puts it around his neck, he stands on the chair he has been sat on all the way through the video and he hangs himself, which is a very abrupt ending to the video.
The main beat is the same all the way through the song and does not change, Tyler simply just raps over a continuous beat, however at 2.27 a tiny melody comes in to add to the downbeat, this starts as soon as Tyler stops singing.
