A voice at the beginning of Don’t Tap That Glass declares “None of that deep shit!” in reference to the music to come on the record — and that’s the vibe Tyler, the Creator wanted on the album. In a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music on Thursday, the rapper shared why it was important to keep things “fun” on the record.
“It was being silly, just fun again. Because Chromakopia was so like, for me… I’m not saying it’s the most mature, deep shit. Everyone has different lives,” Tyler told Lowe. “But for me, whether it’s me talking about my relationship with my hair and how that’s affected me, or me almost being a father last year, or the relationship that I have with my father now, just so many things that I decided to dive deep into.”
He added of his LP, Chromakopia: “After the weight of that got off, I just wanted to be silly again.”
Tyler specifically pointed to parts of “Rah Tah Tah,” “Noid,” and “Sticky,” where he even heard his Los Angeles “really popp[ing] through.” There are other points where he quoted memes and silly internet videos in what he was writing.
“I just want to get back to that, no deep album cuts, no slow emotional shit… I just want to be fun and say outrageous shit,” Tyler said, adding that the “main goal” of the album was to include some of the “inside jokes that me and my friends laugh at, and just talk big fly shit.”
He explained: “And it was just fun doing that again, and not trying to be good, and precious, and make the most innovative music. Like, bro, over it. No intros, no outros, no bridges. Get to the fucking point. Get to the hook. Get to the verse. No beat switches, no fucking… I’m over it, bro.”
Tyler said parts of the album also reconnected him with his early love for dancing and artists who make danceable music — specifically Usher and his album, My Way.
“I want to wear leather and fucking gyrate. I used to think I was Usher when I was seven years old. That My Way album was my shit, so I really know how to dance,” Tyler explained. “If you look at the ‘I Fucking Hate You’ video, how I’m moving and stuff, and then it’s this random Loiter Squad clip. We in Seattle and I’m like shirtless in my boxers, and I’m doing these moves.”
He added: “And everyone’s like, oh, that’s funny, but when you really look at it, my whole career has been a lot of body movement and stuff like that. And I was like, ‘Oh, this is finally the album where I could really just dance for real and just groove and have fun.’ Yeah, I just wanted to make super urgent, upbeat shit.”
Trending Stories
Tyler released Don’t Tap the Glass — a short, 28-minute record — in late July. A Rolling Stone review called the album, which included “Ring Ring” and “I’ll Take Care of You” with Yebba, “an entertaining pit stop on the way to something bigger.”
