However listeners choose to interpret this conflict, Tyler doesn’t seem to be rapping to make amends but to be understood. Much will be (and has already been) made of what exactly this means for a rapper who once responded to an open letter from Sara Quin criticizing his homophobic words and actions and those who support them by crudely saying, “ If Tegan And Sara Need Some Hard Dick, Hit Me Up!” Pivotal moments in his catalog are largely dependent on his often shameless and unapologetic use of gay slurs, and while these admissions don’t absolve him of past hate speech, they do paint a portrait of a confused and tactless young introvert in crisis. He pens songs for his lover (“See You Again”), leaves him voicemails (“Glitter”), and seeks comfort through contact. Flower Boy unfurls from this revelation and the subsequent romance. On “Foreword,” he raps, “Shoutout to the girls that I lead on/For occasional head and always keeping my bed warm/And trying they hardest to keep my head on straight/And keeping me up enough till I had thought I was airborne.” He later writes, “Next line will have ‘em like ‘Whoa’: I’ve been kissing white boys since 2004.” The album’s literal and figurative centerpiece is “Garden Shed,” an inward-looking sexual awakening turning an extended metaphor into a watershed moment. Tyler spends much of Flower Boy chasing his “‘95 Leo,” coming out in the process. These are hopeful and sincere songs about finding yourself and trying to find someone who values you completely. Finally, Tyler gets to the essence of ideas he’s been chiseling at all along: the angst of a missed connection, the pain of unrequited love, navigating youthful ennui. Conversely, Flower Boy is transformational, lovestruck and penetrating. Time had rendered his shock raps pretty toothless, and it was all sloppy. There were love songs, but they were immature and sometimes flat-out creepy. His raps were regularly empty games of juvenile one-upmanship, snooty hand-wringing aimed at homebodies and the working class, and vitriolic rant raps aimed at no one in particular. But it didn't completely shed Tyler’s old skin, enlisting a host of colorful collaborators (Roy Ayers, Leon Ware, Charlie Wilson, Chaz Bundick, and Dâm-Funk) for songs about jerking off and underage relationships. album, Cherry Bomb more or less imploded. “Tell these black kids they can be who they are,” he raps on “Where This Flower Blooms,” as he grows into the artist he’s always longed to be, and perhaps always was. Not only is Flower Boy Tyler’s most trenchant work, it’s his most inclusive: “ Find Your Wings”: The Album, gentle and liberating. He probes the things that shaped his psyche-loneliness, isolation, and disorientation-and focuses on outgrowing friendships, balancing the pull of nostalgia and the necessity for growth. Flower Boy (promoted as Scum Fuck Flower Boy) is Tyler’s course-correction, surprisingly meditative and beautifully colored, a collage of memories and daydreams that trades bratty subversion for reflection and self-improvement.
0 kommentar(er)
