Album Review: Tyler, The Creator - Wolf

“It was simply an, again, admittedly absurd story that was never meant to be taken seriously” is what Tyler, The Creator said about a Mountain Dew commercial he made like a month ago starring a goat he made that supposedly was racist and sexist; two qualities that if you agree with perpetually outraged cultural-guardian-blogger types are common to basically the 22 year old rapper's entire musical catalogue. Wolf, album three from Tyler Gregory Okonma, is not going to change anybody's opinion in that regard, whichever way he rubs you. Track number two, Jamba, is built on a lazy 4/4 rhythm that uses a sample of a woman being slapped in either some act of sex or domestic violence and again, which of those two it actually is will be determined by the way you already split on the question “does Tyler hate fags and condone rape in his music”.

But if you find that question boring, and you probably should by now, Wolf is a rich record. It can't really find a decent hook in 71 minutes of playtime, but Tyler still raps like he's in the car-crash of the male psyche from the perspective of the driver (“I am the cowboy of my own trip” he repeats in Cowboy). Awkward makes it clear above all else, he's frightened by what he is capable of. He laments the death of his Grandma on Lone.  He confesses in Answer, after chasing his estranged Nigerian father for, well, answers - “Frank is out the closet/Hodgy's an alcoholic/Syd might be bipolar/but fuck it, I couldn't call it”. Wolf's success is that Tyler wants to be taken seriously, it's just a matter of neutralizing the reactionaries first with absurdity.