Having studied and truly internalized the pressure-point stimulation of Eminem, who made his millions in part by identifying and uttering the most provocative statements possible in any given scenario, Odd Future waged a campaign of deliberate transgression that netted support and outrage in equal measure but, importantly, used the attention to shine a light on the stellar crafts of its members.
In de facto Odd Future leader Tyler, the Creator’s biting new song “Manifesto” — a long-overdue reunion with his old squad’s gifted stoner rapper Domo Genesis — he revisits the heat of the moment where his group blew up and mass outrage ensued: “Protesting outside my shows, I gave them the middle finger / I was a teener, tweeting Selena crazy shit / Didn’t wanna offend her, apologized when I seen her.” The cut traces Tyler’s growth from an aspiring internet troublemaker to a live performer picketed at his own concerts and banned in countries overseas to the boundlessly creative 30-year-old polymath of today.
It details the unsettling feeling of being reviled by strangers in a jumble of snide rhymes: “You can’t relate to these things I say to these instrumentals / Whether it’s wealth talk or shit that’s painful / I paint full pictures of my perspective on these drum breaks / Just for you to tell me, ‘It’s not good,’ from your lunch break.” Returning to rap full-time means figuring out how to provoke listeners without resorting to the careless line-stepping of Bastard and Goblin, where Tyler made a concerted effort to offend anyone who took themselves too seriously and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. He came to count powerful figures like former U.K.
“Massa” ends with Tyler owning the weight of his responsibility to his fandom and the occasional crotchetiness of his public persona, then making sure to offer encouragement to fans who might see him as a role model: “I feel like anything I say, dawg, I’m screwing shit up / So I just tell these Black babies they should do what they want.” Maturity comes and goes, though.
The nickname’s Tyler Baudelaire, presumably a reference to French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire, an extravagant spender who wrote passionately of love and lust and faced charges of obscenity upon the release of his most memorable work, 1857’s Les Fleurs du Mal .” Later, “Sweet/I Thought You Wanted to Dance,” the traditional Tyler track ten two-parter, deftly cycles between funk, bossa nova, and reggae as excitement ferments into regret.
The presence of Domo Genesis and DJ Drama recalls early Odd Future releases like Radical from 2010, the year Tyler tweeted that he wanted his own Gangsta Grillz tape.
As much as Call Me If You Get Lost is a bookend to the yearning for acceptance, attention, and affluence that characterized Tyler, the Creator’s earlier work, it is also a catalogue of the hindrances that come with scaling the mountaintop.