Young Tyler, The Creator, treated his rap career like being strapped to a ticking time bomb, inevitable and unstable. On his debut studio album, “Goblin,” Tyler wrestles with insecurities by talking with his imaginary shrink, Dr. TC. It’d be the album to rocket him out of the underground and into the mainstream, exacerbating his internal struggle. The overnight success of the album was partly thanks to a viral music video to the track “Yonkers,” where he eats a literal fat roach, pukes his guts out while still keeping in time lip-syncing and then hangs himself. Much like Ozzy Osbourne’s bat-eating myth, the roach was Tyler’s “fuck you” moment that introduced him to the world and would forever define his career.
Few hip-hop artists of the 2010s have had the same artistic growth and talent as Tyler, The Creator. Living up to the name Odd Future, Tyler’s start in the Los Angeles music collective made him a name in the hip-hop underground before blowing up in popularity seemingly overnight with the release of his debut “Goblin.” A polarizing figure through and through, his early days have been seen with gentler eyes than when he was first impressed by the music landscape. Many saw him as crude, bigoted and immature but his talent as a producer and lyricist became evident to many critics even in his early days. Undergoing a metamorphosis, Tyler would dispel critics and prove to be one of today's most unique and gifted hip-hop artists.
