The release of Tyler, the Creator’s fifth album Flower Boy was almost overshadowed by clickbait headlines asserting that he’d used it as a vehicle to come out as gay, which raised a few eyebrows considering his prodigious use of homophobic slurs in his very early work. While it may have garnered the most headlines, this is probably Tyler’s least controversial album, having completely shed his #edgy, contentious, cockroach eating image. If this was your first exposure to Tyler it’d be inexplicable that he’s been banned from entire countries for his lyrical content. It’s a shame that the headlines somewhat overshadowed the fact that Flower Boy is a great album, and Tyler’s best to date.
Tyler produced the entirety of Flower Boy on his own and, as a result, it shares a similar consistency of vision to Earl Sweatshirt’s I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, although the actual sound couldn’t be more different. While I Don’t Like Shit was dark, oppressive and hazy, Flower Boy is summery, light and fun, although there’s still a sense of melancholy on songs like ‘November’ and especially ‘Garden Shed’ (but we’ll get to that later).
The beats largely employ the kind of basic but reliably warm and pleasant synth tones that could be found on a Mac Demarco track, along with dusty drum samples and strings occasionally punctuating songs and serving as transitions. The beats are occasionally allowed to meander off and do their own thing for a bit before Tyler jumps back on, but when they sound as lush as this that’s no bad thing. There’s the required energy banger™ in the form of single ‘Who Dat Boy’, which features A$AP Rocky and it slaps just as hard as a Tyler and Rocky collaboration should. Lil Wayne provides an interlude in the form of ‘Droppin’ Seeds’ and Frank Ocean makes a couple of appearances on both ‘When the Flower Blooms’ and ‘911/Mr. Lonely’, the latter being an album highlight.
The centrepiece of the album is ‘Garden Shed’, the primary source of the ‘coming out’ stories that flooded headlines last week, the titular garden shed being a stand in for the ‘closet’. For the first two thirds of the song the lush beat continuously morphs and changes with Estelle occasionally crooning over the top before Tyler finally drops in with a single verse at the 2:50 mark. Tyler describes hiding his feelings away through clever word play and subtle allusions. While this song got the most attention, personally if I was looking for proof of Tyler being gay on this album I would have gone for ‘I been kissing white boys since 2004’ from the Kanye-esque ‘I Ain’t Got Time’ but that’s just me.
Flower Boy sounds like Tyler blooming into the artist he was meant to be underneath all the provocation. He sounds musically comfortable with this sound, and this makes for a consistently engaging and enjoyable album. The lyrical themes of the album suggest he’s not just found comfort musically, but also in his personal life which only makes the album more satisfying.
Words by Jack Hollis