Tyler, The Creator and Queer Analysis Stereotypes
I love listening to music. The most used app on my phone is Spotify hands down and whenever I am not having a conversation with someone or in a class or work, I am usually listening to music. My go to genre of music is Hip Hop (Rap music), but I also like Indie Rock and Country music as well. Hip Hop music has a tendency to glorify men having sexual relations with a large quantity of women and tends to stick with these heterosexual story lines.
Tyler, The Creator is a very popular musician from Ladera Heights, California. Tyler has put out a variety of different music and has put out four studio albums. His most recent album is called Flower Boy (though there is a longer name for the album that includes some coarse language). He also has his own clothing line. I want to particularly look at Flower Boy for two reasons: Tyler “comes out” in a way in this album as bisexual. He also is trying to change the narrative of hip hop so that it isn’t just about guys getting a lot of girls.
On his song “I Ain’t Got Time”, Tyler raps the line: “ I’ve been kissing white boys since 2004…”. Although it hasn’t been proved 100%, many believe this is Tyler coming out as bisexual. When we look at stereotypes of Queer Analysis, we see that this is pretty common. People often talk about coming out and it is arguably the number one stereotype in media. This is pretty big for someone like Tyler, who has been called a homophobe in the past.
Another example on the album is the song called “Garden Shed”. Again, this is very similar to the stereotype of “coming out of the closet”. The garden shed is Tyler’s hiding place and he is wondering if it is same to come out. This also makes me think about the second stereotype in Queer Analysis discussing drama and conflict. In the song, Tyler seems to be stressing how much conflict he has about coming out, even though he has repeatedly said things hinting about his sexual orientation.
I would like to stress that I think Tyler is trying to be as positive as he can be about this topic. As I have mentioned, anything other then heterosexuality isn’t often discussed in hip hop and I think this is a good starting point to try to start the conversation about homosexuality and bisexuality in hip hop. Tyler also has created a “Pride” line for his fashion collection, Golf. At the bottom of the page is a link to the Genius page for Tyler’s album Flower Boy for those interested in taking a deeper look at his lyrics.
