Tyler’s Tantrum To Music And The Women Who Support Chris Brown
“Woke up I had the same clothes on I had on last night” — N*E*R*D ‘Provider’
Like many others who are now in their late 20s, I stopped listening to Eminem by the time I was around 17 of my own accord. I can’t remember the thrill I got from seeing the poster of him on the ceiling above my bed as a fourteen year old, but I do recall how hard it was at the time to comprehend the problem my parents had with me listening to him.
“Freedom of speech? My freedom was breached Border Patrol put me on streets immediately For shit I said when I was a virgin, repeatedly Posting on Hypebeast cause nobody would listen me”
The above lyrics, from Tyler’s new track ‘Fuck It’, directly reference his recent bans in the UK and New Zealand, as well as the campaign run by activist group Collective Shout to ban him in Australia. Tyler was meant to tour in September of this year but cancelled due to the controversy surrounding his planned appearances.
After Collective Shout’s somewhat successful campaign against Tyler, The Creator, wherein they claimed his lyrics incited and glamourised violence against women, the later decision by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to refuse Chris Brown a visa came as no surprise. Though the initial campaign started by GetUp! to ban Chris Brown was later retracted by the activist group because of its ‘racial aspects’ , Collective Shout have not reconsidered their campaign, despite the fact that unlike Brown, Tyler has no criminal record of violence against women.
“We should be focusing more on alcoholism and drug abuse and the effects they have on women rather than rap lyrics,” says Grace, a designer and rap fan from Melbourne. Zoe, a fellow designer agrees, “I’m a feminist, but I am also a creative so I understand that art is seldom literal. Striking or confronting images are used to grab the viewer’s attention to a deeper meaning.”
Grace and Zoe’s comments echo those made from female fans of Chris Brown to journalist Osman Faruqi on Medium . It is unimaginable to some why a female would choose to be a fan of Chris Brown after his assault on Rihanna in 2009, but even more unimaginable it would seem, that female fans of Brown are capable of separating the man from his music. As one fan explained to Faruqi, “Chris Brown has been convicted, charged and served his justice. He entered Australia back in 2011 after the conviction was passed, so why should we be kicking up a fuss now?”
Studies done on males transitioning from juvenile detention back into society often mention the stigma placed on juvenile offenders, who presumably are making ‘life choices’ and can be wholly blamed for their actions. What messages are we sending young males then when one is punished for lyrics he wrote as a teenager? Statistically, males who engage in violent behaviour are already marginalized within a wider age-group and gender notorious for being hard to get to open up and express themselves.
“His song, ‘IFHY’ best represents what it is about Tyler, The Creator that makes me a fan,” says Eleftherios, a 22 year old musician from Melbourne, “The video and lyrics raise questions about what it means to be in love and how one may justify their intense actions under the guise of love”. Though Eleftherios was upset at the news Tyler was no longer touring, instead of angrily tweeting at Coralie Alison like many ‘fans’ of Tyler did, he instead started a petition on change.org . “If a member of Collective Shout read (the petition) I’d hope I was clear and concise enough for them to understand a side that isn’t simply ‘Fuk them, they’re bitchez for banning Tyler’” he explains.
As a male fan of Tyler’s though, Eleftherios maintains he was ultimately only confused instead of informed by the campaign to block the rapper. “It felt like people were looking to make an example of Tyler in the hopes that it would send a message that behaving in the manner that Tyler speaks of in his lyrics will get you punished” he tells me, “Tyler has shown no evidence in his life at all to confirm what people were accusing him of. So why should Tyler be the symbol when we could instead look to our government? Has making an example of Tyler forced their hand to put more money into severely cash-strapped social services? In school I learnt about sex, but I didn’t learn that simply walking through a park at night might unknowingly intimidate another person. If we know more about the topic, it allows us to separate what Tyler, the Creator is saying from reality”.
Just recently, 23 year-old Olivia from Sydney successfully campaigned to have an online abuser charged after he posted a screenshot of her Tinder profile on his Facebook page with the agenda to ridicule her, a decision which attracted darker and steadily more abusive comments. And cyber bullying, which includes the behaviour of those who tweeted at Coralie Alison, should have real-life consequences. The issue remains though, that Tyler’s latest song is deemed ‘a tantrum set to music’ by Collective Shout, but further action was not taken to address and educate the individuals who tweeted at Alison. Instead of campaigning to ban the individuals abusing her from Facebook, Olivia and her friends are campaigning the Senate to address online sexual harassment overall. While the current government purports to take a ‘zero tolerance’ attitude to violence against women, publicly dismissing two rappers based on no nuanced discourse (we’re certainly far away from appearances by Ice-T on A Current Affair) shows an ineptitude for tackling issues concerning women, and sends the incorrect message that an issue as big as domestic violence begins and ends with individuals, or even that a dangerous male is likely to announce their behaviour plainly through a song.
Banning Chris Brown is currently the favoured decision by governments here and in New Zealand, despite the fact that women from groups like the National Urban Maori Authority have come to his defence. A decision that other women working in domestic violence groups in NZ support. Merepeka Raukawa-Tait, the former executive of New Zealand’s Women’s Refuge has spoken out in defense of Brown saying, “We believe that change can occur and we need a range of people to speak out and demonstrate strong leadership”.
In 2012, Rihanna told Oprah in great detail about the trouble she had forgiving Chris Brown. It forced her to think about her relationship with her father, who was also an abusive presence during much of her formative years. As she told Oprah though, the public seeing Brown as a monster did nothing to ease her pain.
Rihanna’s video for ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ also caught the attention of Collective Shout, who referred to it — along with the music of Tyler, The Creator — as ‘pornified snuff’ for an article on the ABC’s Religion and Ethics site. Which indicates that all art, no matter if a once victim of domestic violence made it, is inevitably going to be misinterpreted. Is expression of anger, vengefulness, confusion or frustration really such a violent act? Surely it is more damaging for society to take an ethical or moral issue with art, condemn those who make it and then by extension their fans without even speaking to them.