49 Fun Facts About Tyler, the Creator

Tyler, the Creator grew up in which Los Angeles suburb?

Hawthorne was home until he moved to Ladera Heights at 17, though he says he went through 12 schools in 12 years. One, Hawthorne's Media Arts Academy, was nicknamed Hip Hop High.

Odd Future's full name, abbreviated OFWGKTA, ends with which three words?

Kill Them All ends the full name, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. By 2011 crowds of teenagers were hollering 'Wolf Gang' at every sold-out show.

Tyler's streetwear brand, launched in 2011, is called what?

Golf Wang swaps the first letters of Wolf Gang, from Odd Future's full name. Its first lookbook, 'Holiday 1991', appeared in December 2011.

After parting with Vans, Tyler launched his own sneaker line in 2017 with which brand?

Converse released his first shoe, a pale blue One Star, in July 2017. He had left Vans the year before, saying the partnership gave him too little creative freedom.

Tyler gave away his debut album, Bastard, on Odd Future's website on which holiday in 2009?

Christmas Day 2009 was the release date. Tyler put it out himself as a free download, and later recalled that it first reached just 46 people.

Which single's music video, in which Tyler eats a cockroach, won him Best New Artist at the 2011 VMAs?

Yonkers began as a joke: Tyler says he made the beat in eight minutes as a parody of 1990s New York rap, and named it after a city there.

What is the name of Tyler's annual music festival, first held in 2012?

Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival began in 2012 as the Odd Future carnival. In 2019 fans hoping for a different surprise guest booed Drake until he left the stage early.

Under what pseudonym does Tyler direct his own music videos?

Wolf Haley is his directing credit, and it mattered early: word of Odd Future first spread through the viral videos he made himself.

Odd Future's sketch comedy show Loiter Squad aired on which network block?

Adult Swim ran Loiter Squad from 2012 to 2014. Dickhouse, the company behind Jackass, produced the first two seasons, and pranks ran alongside the sketches.

Which UK Home Secretary banned Tyler from Britain in 2015 over lyrics from Bastard?

Theresa May's Home Office barred him for three to five years. In 2020 he collected a Brit Award in London and sarcastically thanked her from the stage for keeping him out.

Which Igor single became Tyler's highest-charting song at the time, reaching number 13 on the Hot 100?

Earfquake has an uncredited Playboi Carti verse. In its video Tracee Ellis Ross plays a talk-show host, and Tyler's cigarette sets the studio on fire.

Tyler originally wrote his biggest Igor hit for which pop star, who turned it down?

Justin Bieber passed, and so did Rihanna, whom Tyler then asked to sing the hook. He kept his own rough vocal instead, and the song became his biggest hit to that point.

Call Me If You Get Lost is narrated by which mixtape DJ?

DJ Drama talks over the album as he did on his Gangsta Grillz mixtapes. The series shaped the record, which left the softer sound of Tyler's previous two albums for bold beats and raw rhymes.

What persona is named on the ID-card cover of Call Me If You Get Lost?

Tyler Baudelaire is the album's well-travelled persona. Critics took the surname for a nod to the French poet, but Tyler says it comes from the orphans in Lemony Snicket's books.

Chromakopia is narrated by whom?

Tyler's mother, Bonita Smith, is the first voice on the album and returns in voice notes between songs, so it plays like a diary of her advice.

Chromakopia came out on which day of the week, breaking the industry's Friday habit?

Monday was deliberate: Tyler had argued that Friday releases encourage 'passive listening'. Even with a shortened chart week, the album opened at number one with 299,000 units.

Igor and Call Me If You Get Lost each won which Grammy category?

Best Rap Album went to Igor in 2020 and to Call Me If You Get Lost in 2022. After the first win Tyler said he was grateful but called the rap label a 'backhanded compliment'.

Which Odd Future member started out ghostwriting songs for other singers before joining the collective in 2010?

Frank Ocean wrote songs for other artists before joining Odd Future. His mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra went up free on the group's Tumblr in 2011, and Channel Orange made him a star a year later.

On Bastard and Goblin, Tyler talks to a fictional therapist with what name?

Dr. TC is unmasked on the last track of Goblin: he is Tyler's own conscience, and everyone Tyler has been arguing with turns out to be in his head.

Tyler's 2013 concept album follows which three characters?

Wolf, Sam and Salem carry one continuous story through the album, which came out with three different covers. The therapist of his first two records bows out on its closing track.

Which Tyler album was first announced with a two-word expletive in front of its title?

Flower Boy leaked eleven days before its July 2017 release and still entered the Billboard 200 at number two. Eric White painted its cover of Tyler among bees.

Tyler's 2017 album lost its 2018 Grammy category to which record?

DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar won that night but lost Album of the Year to Bruno Mars's 24K Magic. Later that spring it took the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Which 2017 Tyler track featuring Kali Uchis became a sleeper hit on TikTok in 2023?

See You Again missed the Hot 100 on release, stalling just below it. Six years later TikTok carried it onto the chart for the first time.

Which rapper co-headlined a 2015 tour with Tyler in the months after Cherry Bomb came out?

A$AP Rocky shared top billing on the Rocky and Tyler Tour. Three years later the pair teased a joint project with 'Potato Salad', a freestyle over Monica's 'Knock Knock'.

Which two superstar rappers guest on Cherry Bomb?

Kanye West and Lil Wayne both rap on 'Smuckers'. Kanye later said he rewrote his verse after hearing what the other two had recorded.

Tyler wrote and performed the theme song for which scientist's Netflix show?

Bill Nye Saves the World unveiled Tyler's theme with a clip of the two discussing the old Science Guy tune. 'You take out that snare, it could be a house song,' Tyler said of the original.

Tyler's animated late-night series, co-created with Lionel Boyce, is called what?

The Jellies! began in 2015 as a web series on Tyler's own app. For television the family's adopted human son, Cornell, was redrawn from white to Black.

Tyler scored a Louis Vuitton menswear show that was among the last put together by which designer?

Virgil Abloh died in November 2021, two months before the show went ahead. Arthur Verocai arranged Tyler's score, and Gustavo Dudamel conducted the Chineke! Orchestra playing it live.

Which producer, whose album Igor beat to number one, dismissed Tyler's work as 'mysterious' music?

DJ Khaled lost the number one spot to Igor in May 2019 and grumbled about 'mysterious' music. Tyler answered three years later, tweeting 'MYSTERIOUS MUSIC! HA!' after a Grammy win.

Which rapper called Tyler a slur on the 2018 single Fall and later said he had gone too far?

Eminem told Sway he knew he had gone 'too far'. Tyler shrugged it off: he said he was playing Grand Theft Auto when he heard the line, rewound it and kept playing.

Tyler made his feature film debut in 2025 as Wally in which A24 sports movie?

Marty Supreme casts him as Wally, the friend who helps Timothée Chalamet's table-tennis hustler fleece a bowling alley and gets his taxi wrecked for it. The credits use his birth name.

Where did Tyler hold the phone-free listening party for Don't Tap the Glass on the eve of its release?

Hollywood Forever Cemetery hosted 300 guests with phones and cameras banned. Tyler said friends had told him they no longer danced in public for fear of being filmed.

Which look did Tyler adopt for the videos and photos of the Igor era?

A blonde wig and pastel suit made up the character Igor. Tyler unveiled the look in two clips of himself dancing erratically, then wore it on a talk-show set that catches fire in his next video.

Which singer added vocals to 'I Think', a track Tyler recorded at a villa on Italy's Lake Como?

Solange sings on the finished track, recorded at Villa Batell. Tyler built its chorus on 'Special Lady', a 1980s Nigerian record by Bibi Mascel.

Tyler produced his first beat at age 12 using which software?

FL Studio, or Fruity Loops as he called it, was where the 12-year-old made a beat titled 'Reverse'. He taught himself to make beats and to play the piano.

Which of these jobs did a young Tyler hold for over two years?

Starbucks barista was the job that lasted, for more than two years; at FedEx he was gone in under two weeks. He told both stories on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2015.

Which production team's 2000s work were Tyler's early beats noted for resembling?

The Neptunes, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, were the model. Tyler has said In Search Of..., by their band N.E.R.D., did more for him than Illmatic.

Which 2009 album by a Detroit rapper does Tyler cite as a big influence on his early horrorcore sound?

Relapse is one of Tyler's favourite albums and left its mark on Bastard and Goblin. He has still always rejected the 'horrorcore' label that fans and critics gave those records.

Tyler's billboards for Call Me If You Get Lost carried a phone number that played what?

A conversation with his mother played when fans dialled the number on the billboards. The same recording turned up on the album as the track 'Momma Talk'.

Which Grammy did Tyler win in 2026 for Chromakopia?

Best Album Cover was added to the Grammys for 2026, and Chromakopia won it. The album lost Album of the Year to Bad Bunny the same night.

Which Don't Tap the Glass single has a self-directed video in which a rave breaks out in a white-tiled room?

Sugar on My Tongue went viral on social media, became the album's second single and reached number 41 on the Hot 100.

In which festival city was Tyler arrested in 2014 for inciting a riot at his own show?

Austin police arrested him after a South by Southwest show at which he urged fans to push past security. He faced up to a year in jail, but the charge was later dropped.

Which member of Tyler's collective released a self-titled mixtape on Tumblr in 2010?

Earl Sweatshirt had barely released Earl when his mother sent him to a boarding school in Samoa, and 'Free Earl' became the chant at Odd Future shows.

In which country did Tyler cancel a 2015 tour leg after the group Collective Shout campaigned to bar him?

Australia lost its Cherry Bomb dates after Collective Shout argued that his lyrics glorified violence against women. That August Britain went further and barred him from entering at all.

On which host's late-night show did Tyler and Hodgy Beats give Odd Future its chaotic TV debut in 2011?

Jimmy Fallon's Late Night hosted the February 2011 debut. Backed by the Roots, the pair tore through a set with garden gnomes, zombies and ski masks.

Which Grammy nomination did Tyler receive for Don't Tap the Glass, sorting it away from rap altogether?

Best Alternative Music Album put his dance record up against the Cure, Bon Iver and Wet Leg. The Cure's Songs of a Lost World took the award.

Which British independent label, also home to Adele, signed Tyler to a one-album deal for Goblin in 2011?

XL Recordings signed the 19-year-old for one album only, a month after releasing Adele's 21. Goblin came out that May, and his next record appeared on his own Odd Future label.

Which festival did Tyler headline in 2024, nine years after mocking its VIP section from the stage?

Coachella gave him its Saturday headline slot in 2024, with Childish Gambino and Kali Uchis as guests. In 2015 he had stopped his set there to scold the VIP area for its lack of enthusiasm.

Tyler took his stage name from a page he ran on which early social network?

MySpace was where the teenage Tyler kept a page for his creative projects, and its title became his stage name. Odd Future later spread its music through Tumblr instead.