Tyler, The Creator Calls Out ‘Racist’ Swifties For Digging Up His Old Lyrics To ‘Cancel’ Him
by Conor Murray · ForbesTopline
Grammy-winning rap star Tyler, the Creator slammed fans of Taylor Swift while on stage in Boston on Thursday night, calling them “racist” in response to social media posts made by some Swifties criticizing the rapper’s decade-plus-old lyrics they deemed offensive.
Key Facts
Tyler, the Creator, whose real name is Tyler Okonma, said Thursday he “got Swifties all mad at me with their racist ass, bringing up old lyrics, b*tch, go listen to ‘Tron Cat,’ I don’t give a f*ck,” referencing a 2011 song with lyrics some social media users, including some who identify themselves as Swift fans, had criticized, calling them problematic.
Though it’s unclear why some Swift fans circulated screenshots of Tyler, the Creator’s old lyrics and social media posts this week, the controversy ignited soon after the rapper briefly overtook Swift as the No. 1 artist on global Spotify, the chart Swift has topped for the vast majority of this year.
In one post made on X, formerly known as Twitter, liked more than 270,000 times, a Swift fan account slammed a lyric from “Tron Cat,” in which Tyler, the Creator raps about raping a pregnant woman.
Some of Tyler, the Creator’s fans pointed out the the rapper portrays characters on his album “Goblin,” which includes the song “Tron Cat,” and some of the songs involve the rapper talking to his therapist about intrusive thoughts, which he also raps about on the song “Nightmare”: “It's like I got a fucking voice in my head/Tellin' me to do all this fucked up shit, man.”
News Peg
Tyler, the Creator released “Chromakopia,” his eighth album, on Monday. The album was an immediate streaming hit, and the rapper ranked No. 1 on the Global Spotify daily artist chart between Monday and Wednesday, before falling to No. 2 behind Swift on Thursday. Billboard reported the album could earn the rapper his biggest-ever first week streaming total, likely landing him on top of the Billboard 200 albums chart next week.
Key Background
Tyler, the Creator has previously courted controversy for his music, including some of his earliest work with the Odd Future rap collective, which Variety reported was “littered with violent, sexist, misogynistic and homophobic lyrics.” His lyrical content led to his ban from the United Kingdom in 2015, which Tyler, the Creator said was based on lyrics he had written in 2009. His manager, Christian Clancy, posted on Tumblr at the time that the rapper was “banned from entering the UK for somewhere between 3 to 5 years” according to a letter they received from the U.K. Home Secretary, which accused the rapper of encouraging “violence and intolerance of homosexuality.” His manager said in the post the lyrics cited are “the type of lyrics he hasn’t written since” and slammed the ban as an “issue of free speech.” The rapper’s music in recent years has since been interpreted as more mature by music critics: When he released his 2018 album “Flower Boy,” the New Yorker wrote that he had “grown up,” and Rolling Stone said he “trades teenage angst for mature introspection” on his 2021 album, “Call Me If You Get Lost.”
Surprising Fact
Tyler, the Creator has referenced Swift in some of his older songs. In his song “Nightmare” from 2011, he raps: “My father called me to tell me he loved me/I'd have a better chance of gettin' Taylor Swift to f*ck me.” He also made a sexual reference to Swift on his 2010 song, “Fish.”