Artist

Tyler, The Creator

Los Angeles, United States • b. 1991

Tyler, The Creator is a musician from Los Angeles, United States, active since 1991. Their discography on Gatefold includes 11 records.

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Albums tracked

449

In collections

1991

Since

Biography

Tyler Gregory Okonma (born on March 6, 1991 in Hawthorne, California, USA) also known as Tyler, The Creator, is a Grammy award-winning American rapper, singer, record producer, director, fashion designer, and the head of his independent record label, Odd Future Records. He was the leader of the now-defunct Los Angeles hip-hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA). Since his first recordings had debuted on The Odd Future Tape in 2007, he had rapped on, and produced for, nearly every OFWGKTA release.

The Arc of Tyler, The Creator

The pivots — what forced Tyler, The Creator to reinvent.

The OFWGKTA Shockwave
Between 2009 and 2011, Tyler orchestrated Odd Future out of Syd tha Kyd's bedroom, armed with cheap software and aggressive DIY aesthetics. Bastard and Goblin became cult manifests of pitch-shifted alter-egos, abrasive synth leads, and raw adolescent rage that terrified the mainstream press. The music was deliberately offensive and raw, prioritizing blunt-force impact over traditional mix polish. It gave him an army of rabid skate kids and an immediate crosshair from old-school critics.
The Blown-Out Experiment
By 2013's Wolf and 2015's Cherry Bomb, Tyler was trying to force his inner jazz nerd and punk-rock instincts into the same tracklist. Cherry Bomb was a sonic mess on purpose, featuring brickwalled master channels, screaming guitars, and uncredited Roy Ayers and Charlie Wilson cameos battling for space. The mainstream recoiled from the harsh distortion, but it broke his creative habits wide open. It proved he was done playing the one-dimensional internet provocateur.
The Chord-Progression Auteur
Flower Boy in 2017 dropped the defensive armor and pivoted hard toward lush chord voicings, breezy Neo-soul textures, and naked vulnerability. Igor followed two years later as a full-blown synth-funk breakup opera that Tyler wrote, produced, and arranged completely alone. The distorted bass was still there, but now it served tight Motown structures and pitch-corrected pop hooks. It earned him his first Grammy and silenced anyone still dismissing him as a mixtape shock-rapper.
The Mixtape Mogul
In 2021, he linked up with DJ Drama to deliver CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST, resurrecting the golden age of Gangsta Grillz street tapes with top-tier luxury brag-rap. The raw, off-the-cuff bar-heavy delivery sat on top of vintage soul loops and bossa-nova grooves. He followed it with 2024's CHROMAKOPIA, diving into introspective marching rhythms and aggressive paranoia. It cemented his ability to swing between prestige production and raw rap flexes at will.

Influences

The Neptunes — Tyler has credited Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo as his single biggest creative spark, consistently calling N.E.R.D's In Search Of... his holy text. You can hear their signature four-count intros, bridge structures, and punchy Clavia Nord Lead synth presets across his entire catalog. Without Pharrell's crossover playbook, Tyler never builds his own empire.
Stevie Wonder — Tyler explicitly studied Stevie Wonder's classic 1970s run for harmonic guidance and complex chord substitutions. You hear those lush, polyphonic electric piano voicings all over the arrangements on Flower Boy and Igor. It turned a bedroom beatmaker into a serious arranger.
Eminem — The early Odd Future horrorcore lineage directly traces back to The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP. Tyler adopted Eminem's multisyllabic rhyme patterns, violent narrative hyperbole, and multi-character psychoanalysis routines across Bastard and Goblin. It was the blueprint for using internal alter-egos to process genuine angst.
Roy Ayers — Ayers was a massive hero of Tyler's who eventually joined him in the studio for Cherry Bomb on tracks like 'FIND YOUR WINGS.' The bright, vibraphone-heavy jazz-funk textures and breezy progressions of 1970s Ubiquity records are embedded in Tyler's melodic DNA. It is where he gets his warm summer chords.
MF DOOM — Tyler constantly shouted out DOOM's independent villain persona and rough-cut cartoon collage style during the early Odd Future Tumblr days. The muddy drum chops, obscure sampling choices, and masked anti-hero posturing of Operation: Doomsday set the stage for Tyler's DIY myth-building. It taught him how to stay weird and remain fiercely independent.