Gangsta Grillz, you bastards: on Tyler, the Creator’s Call Me If You Get Lost

1. CHARLES BEAUDELAIRE was a French poet from the 19th century, who attained notoriety for his work as an essayist and art critic, to go along with his work as a poet. Which is to say: if he’s not the greatest poet of the 19th century, then he’s not far away. His Les Fleurs du Mal remains stupendous, and so does his lyrical prose style. His work is so singular that the modern French and English languages wouldn’t be the same without Baudelaire’s output — and without him coining the term modernity. We don’t say all this to say that Baudelaire is the modern godfather of rap music, at least not quite. Rather, we say all this to say this: Baudelaire was, is and forever will be a big deal.

Charles Beaudelaire is also the monicker DJ Drama keeps yelling when referring to Tyler, The Creator on the latter’s new album Call Me If You Get Lost.

2. THIS NEW ALBUM Call Me If You Get Lost picks up right where his previous album Igor left off. For one thing, it’s a Billboard 200 №1 album, Tyler’s second in a row. Sales projections have Call Me If You Get Lost as having sold something like 169,000 units in the first week, just a little up from Igor’s 165,000 sales in 2019. Not only that, but Call Me If You Get Lost explores Tyler’s relationship with others and love in general; his sexuality appears to remain as fluid as ever. Both albums seem to be critical hits as well, which bodes well for Tyler’s chances at next year’s Grammys if the rewards for Igor are any indication. And whereas Igor had the blonde wig that Tyler sported (almost) everywhere (except, like, on the album cover lol), Call Me If You Get Lost has the Russian-like winter hat (that he’s wearing in the thick of summer because life is stupid, yes).

But above all, Call Me If You Get Lost does that thing that Igor did two years ago: it’s a huge pivot away from what came before it. Call Me If You Get Lost doesn’t sound like Igor did, just like Igor’s didn’t sound like 2017’s Flower Boy.

That’s because Call Me If You Get Lost sounds like a Gangsta Grillz tape. That’s right, Tyler has a goddang Gangsta Grillz project out in the year of our lord 2021. Aren’t you fucking pumped just like we are?

2. LET US BE the nth person here to run you through the history and significance of Gangsta Grillz in rap music. Before they were (maybe) holding Lil Uzi Vert’s music hostage and before they were (definitely) bugging all of us with something or someone called Jack Harlow, DJ Drama, Don Cannon and everyone from the Aphilliates Music Group had created an empire. They reaffirmed the central place that the rap mixtape, with its bootlegs, instrumentals, unofficial remixes, copied-and-pasted pseudo songs, its messy chaos, beautiful accidents, it reaffirmed the central place, yes, that the rap mixtape had traditionally occupied in the culture throughout the genre’s history. Starting right as making and distributing rap music was becoming less and less centralized, Gangsta Grillz had rappers, at first up-and-comers like T.I. or (Young) Jeezy, branch out and experiment freely removed from the confines of the album structure. There was no radio play and no rap executive to worry about…you just needed to rap. On Gangsta Grillz tapes, rappers experimented and followed every thread they could pull on. Your most left-field idea was your best idea. And for the most part (with some, erm, exceptions), that’s what they did. To great success. (Then the fucking feds raided Drama’s studios. Fuck the feds.)

Throughout Call Me If You Get Lost, we hear DJ Drama talk utter nonsense and oodles of shit (we’ll have more on that later). At times, the album stops and starts again at the beginning of songs. For the most part, Call Me If You Get Lost feels like and hits every item on the mixtape checklist. It feels like a proper mixtape. Is some of this performative, cheesy and forced? Sure, at times. But there is value in nostalgia, whether you like it or not.

3. IT’S BEEN A whirlwind ride for Tyler since breaking through (and breaking shit at) the mainstream at the tail end of last decade. He established Odd Future — or rather Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All — at the tail end of the aughts. They used shock tactics to great effect, building up hype and awareness with every release and pissing off old folks in the process. Their run culminated in a legendary Jimmy Fallon performance (as well as a giddy meeting with MF Doom rip) before, like, essentially seeing the OF bubble pop. Then Earl Sweatshirt was exiled, Frank Ocean took over the world, Tyler got banned from entering the UK, yada yada. OF never officially disbanded, but their run was over. There’s something like a parallel to an Icarus of rap music flying too close to the sun, but we’ll let you figure that one out.

4. TYLER IS ONE of rap music’s foremost album artist and world creator. There’s a purpose behind every pastiche visual he creates, every new musical style he tries his hand at, every song, lyric and melody he composes. (That doesn’t make it better FYI.) And on this new album, Tyler is bringing the guests to his universe; the good news is that he gets the very best version of each of them. (There is no flipside, or bad news, here.) On HOT WIND BLOWS, there’s a floating Lil Wayne verse, unexpected and welcome, a Wayne who shows up to do double-time things about as well as can be expected of him in this diminished phase of his career. The smooth and sultry WUSYANAME has standout performances from both Ty Dolla $ign AND YoungBoy Never Broke Again. With LEMONHEAD, Tyler hits up the Michigan man with the devilish whistle (sorry, we’ll show ourselves out) 42 Dugg. The rapper may be all sly humour, and the beat is a controlled chaos — it all just works. Pharrell and Lil Uzi Vert (but fuck Lil Uzi Vert because of those allegations, even if Eternal Atake was a 2020 highlight) team up on the boisterous and aptly-named JUGGERNAUT. Everywhere on the album, guests elevate the songs they’re featured on.

5. AS FOR HIS fans, well Tyler is bringing them to a new universe — or rather, to a part of his universe that some wish he had kept hidden from them. He’s supposed to make good rap music, the beautiful, polished and thought-out (and thoughtful) kind. (That’s what they say, but they’re herbs.) But really, this tracks with his career trajectory. He’s continuing to reinvent himself and his style, having landed finally on a perfect rollout to go along with what’s just about a perfect mixtape.

Well, not mixtape sorry. Call Me If You Get Lost is an album but it’s an album built like a mixtape. It’s perfect for your car rides and the great speakers and headphones you have. The vocal effects he has reliably used throughout his career to discuss his feelings aren’t on this new album. He doesn’t feel compelled to create a character either. Tyler has always had an unforgettable voice and mic presence, but now he doesn’t need the extra controversy either. There are no more masks, characters or controversies to hide behind. Just Tyler. And he isn’t trying too hard like he used to. It’s an artist coming full circle and living up to the potential and talent he’s always showcased.

6. HERE’S PROBABLY THE part where we’ll run through some of our favourite DJ Drama shit-talking adlibs from Call Me If You Get Lost. On SIR BEAUDELAIRE, which oh by the way is the album intro!, Drama works up to a gleeful kicker. He says that, “This shit for the sunseekers” so “Welcome to the disco.” It’s all a set-up for what’s coming next when he says that “We was takin’ Rolls Royces to go see alligators,” which is just ridiculous and ludicrous enough for us to forgive that it’s a frowned upon if not downright illegal strategy in pandemic times. Then on LEMONHEAD, Drama makes a passing reference to Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei and no we’re not kidding. He dons his life coach hat for a quick second on MASSA, but that’s still not good enough. Drama’s performance to open HOT WIND BLOWS should make it in The Smithsonian one day and, sure, let’s transcribe it over here: “Ladies and gentlemen, we just landed in Geneva. Yeah, that’s in Switzerland, we on a yacht. A young lady just fed me French vanilla ice cream. We all got our toes out, too. Call me when you get lost.”

The first time we heard the album, we could have cried it made us so happy. It’s not the single greatest performance of DJ Drama’s career, because what could be. But it’s his best on this album — and that’s good enough for us.

7. TYLER IS BLESSED. Has it all. That’s what he says on the song titled, you guessed it, BLESSED. The song is a short interlude on the album and on it he’s just listing all the things he’s been blessed with. Golf Wang. Flog Gnaw. His retail store. Collaborations with Converse and Gucci. It’s all good and wonderful except for, like, his freaking hair that just won’t grow.

Then again, maybe Tyler puts on a face and he’s not 99.99% blessed. He was dirty macking this one time and tells us all about it on this new album. He’s undeniably still hurt by being the odd man out of the love triangle. Who tf is that woman from WILSHIRE, that’s what we want to know. (And why does the song keep clicking?) This is a deeply personal and deeply felt song, and that’s not just us interpreting or examining the themes and lyrics under a specific light. Tyler is clearly rapping and he’s clearly rapping about a specific time and experience in his life. Look how he ends the song. “Cause it’s just a story for the people outside of it. But I guess you’re just another chapter in the book.”

But above all, the song we want to discuss is RISE! Mostly, we want to discuss RISE! because there’s a boisterous DJ Drama cameo on the intro of this song. He belts out, “Dedicated to the haters, the non-believers, and the disgruntled. Oh, no, I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay right here and watch Tyler rise to the top.”

We could end the essay here — but where’s the fun in tying things up with a bow precisely so? And anyway, Drama comes right back on the mic at the end of RISE! They’ve just sung the chorus one last time, saying that when I rise to the top in this sweet melody over this biting and intoxicating drum beat; that’s when Drama uncorks a rabbit out of his mic. He says how we’re watching the show, and how it’s gonna be a little painful for those who aren’t them because they aren’t part of the show. And then? Magic. Then Drama yells out this gem: “I’m talking about the tippy-tippy-top. Your ladder will never allow you to get to these heights.”

What a madman. God bless him.