Riot Police Shut Down Tyler, The Creator In-Store

6 June 2013 | 3:52 pm | Scott Fitzsimons

Controversy following tour around the country

Tyler, The Creator and Earl Sweatshirt's Sydney in-store appearance today was shut down by police after thousands of people tried to pack into a clothing store.

Held at George Street's Culture King store, the store has apologised to fans who missed out on seeing the Odd Future members - including Jasper Dolphin.

“We were excited when Odd Future approached us about hosting an in-store,” they said. “We're big fans of their music and stock Odd Future Clothing in our stores. We're very sorry to the fans who didn't get to meet Tyler and the guys before police shut it down.”

The crowds packed out the top and bottom floors of the store and the queue to get in went for two blocks.

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The joint Earlwolf tour will hit Sydney's Enmore Theatre tonight and once again the rappers have had controversy follow them around the country. Collective Shout, a group against the sexualisation of women, have been lobbying the tour's venues to cancel the shows and have Tyler's visa revoked. Tyler's lyrics have often courted negative attention as they depict rape and violence against women.

“Tyler the Creator promotes hate speech against women, perpetuating male entitlement to use women's bodies, to regard women as 'bitches', 'sluts' and 'hoes' for their sexual use,” the group says. “Tyler the Creator's glorification of rape and violence against women could be considered inciting his fans to commit violent crimes against them.”

Their voices were joined by Federal Liberal MP Alex Hawke, who said in the House Of Representatives yesterday, “The grave concern I have is that this so-called 'art' promotes extreme violence against women, including murder, rape, genital mutilation and many other vile misogynist lyrics.

“Allowing this man a visa to promote this misogyny to audiences, including children, is a complete disgrace and an insult to all of us, and to women in particular. Australia must be clear that we have a zero tolerance for these extreme acts of violence, and the government and the minister have power to take action against this sort of intolerance and those encouraging the dehumanisation of women.”

He also took aim at Prime Minister Julia Gillard, saying that she should hold firm on her vow to “call out” misogyny after she originally levelled the claim at opposition leader Tony Abbott in October last year.

“The Prime Minister said that she would call out misogyny whenever she saw it – we [were] all there. Prime Minister, I urge you… to seriously reconsider and review the visa granted to Tyler, The Creator under section 501—the character assessment test. All of us in his House should stop the spread of this vile message against women.”

The tour is promoter by Mushroom Group's Frontier Touring. The company's Chairman Michael Gudinski was unavailable for comment to theMusic.com.au today.