It’s like Tyler is using the track to talk to his six-year younger self. Now, in retrospect, he’s loaded with self appreciation and realises he loves himself, but back then he wasn’t old enough to take the sentiments on board and “find his wings”. Maybe he’s referencing the fact he was feeling stoked, happy in the real world when he released Bastard, but on record he took on alter egos, pretended he was feeling something else, and things started to get confusing. ![]() ”Fucking Young” opens with Tyler stating he “was in nirvana” but “had to pretend that wasn't”, and that’s “where the story and confusion began”. Tyler’s first album, Bastard, came out in 2009, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest the first songs he wrote for the characters of his first three records were authored six years ago. So with that in mind, let’s get into this. But when you're free from something sometimes it's good to reflect on where you've come from. If that seems contradictory, it's because it is. But it’s also about Tyler’s current existence after he killed off all the other characters. From these references alone, it’s like Cherry Bomb’s narrative is loosely focused on Tyler going to watch a three-part film, in other words the WOLF trilogy, he wrote about his alter egos. There’s even a visual too: the video for “Fucking Young” shows Tyler in a cinema, watching a film starring himself. “Okaga, CA” has references to a “favourite director” and Tyler telling a girl to “watch this”. “2Seater” narrates Tyler and a girl arriving at a movie theatre to watch what Jasper calls “ feature”. “Blow my Load” closes with a radio presenter announcing “that was new music from the soundtrack of the upcoming film… Three back to back to back movies at the Moon Theatres tonight”. Instead of following the previous trilogy's therapy-session setting, Cherry Bomb focuses on the release of a three-part film. This week Tyler released Cherry Bomb, his fourth record, and people are already questioning how it fits into the narrative. Roll around to 2015 and things are starting to click into place again. The film never received an official release date though, and was instead slated as “coming 201_”. It was the ultimate confirmation, and my conspiracy theory turned out to be reality. In the WOLF trailer, Sam could be seen beating up Wolf as he rode his bike, through a mountain range. ![]() The trailer featured one of Tyler's aliases, Sam, who had previously appeared in the videos for “Jamba”, “Bimmer” Earl Sweatshirt’s “Woah”, and a performance of “Rusty” on Letterman as wearing a green beanie hat. ![]() But then, in September 2013, he released the trailer for a film called WOLF. I called it the best multi-faceted story since Slim Shady told me to go and stick nine-inch nails into each one of my eyelids.Ī few months passed by without official comment from Tyler the Creator – the piece had caught attention and was wetting the internet’s pants it was posted as an official reference on the album's Rap Genius page, and (still to this day) rammed into my timeline from Odd Future fans - but, despite the odd blase tweet, Tyler never confirmed the storyline. Piecing Wolf together with previous releases Bastard and Goblin, it seemed Tyler had used multiple characters - called Wolf, Sam, Ace the Creator, Tron Cat, and others - to narrate a semi-fictional world set in a place called Camp Flog Gnaw, with therapy sessions guiding the narrative. After listening to the album, I wrote a piece nonchalantly titled “The Conspiracy Theorist’s Guide to Tyler, the Creator’s WOLF Trilogy”, chronicling how Tyler had directed a storytelling masterpiece. Two years ago Tyler the Creator released Wolf and unleashed the Learnaen Hydra of narratives.
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