By Rina Weaver
Tyler, The Creator’s greatest gift remains his inability to do things in a predictable manner. Tyler’s entire aesthetic is predicated around pulling strangers into his universe, pushing them to discard the illusion of personal branding for the length of a verse;whereas some artists make a concentrated effort to surprise their audience with off-beat collaborations. Playboi Carti chirp-raps over exquisite piano chords to wonderful effect on “Earfquake,” from Tyler’s 2019 album Igor. Similarly, Call Me If You Get Lost features a variety of cameos that ultimately serve to strengthen Tyler’s universe. DJ Drama serves as the album’s “host,” a throwback to the Datpiff recordings that defined a generation of hip-hop enthusiasts, including Tyler. With the accompaniment of DJ Drama, Tyler flourishes in the world of the rap mixtape, which allows him to fully express himself as a producer, songwriter, and vocalist.
Only five of Call Me’s 16 songs are longer than three minutes, including the two epics “Wilshire” and “Sweet/I Thought You Wanted to Dance,” that run for eight and a half and ten minutes, respectively. Even within those shorter recordings, there are sharp breaks and jagged connections; notice how both “Corso” and “Lemonhead” open with menace before transitioning to more Technicolor sounds, or how “Massa” inverts that trend, appearing brighter at first but swiftly becoming dimmed out again. At the point when Tyler’s old Odd Future friend Domo Genesis makes an appearance in “Manifesto,” he does so under front of an uncommon beat switch that tosses the tune into chaos.
As for one of my personal favorites, there is “Wilshire” which oscillates between coolly concluding that the affair is worth destroying a friendship over and finding the idea inconceivable the next. He is madly in love, but carefully analyzes it. It has already sparked a flurry of rumors and speculation about the woman’s identity (and, consequently, the friend). Yet you imagine Tyler, by himself in a hotel room somewhere, refreshing his phone, wishing for a single email. Another personal favorite of mine is “Sweet/I Thought You Wanted to Dance.” As indicated in the song title, the song is two in one. The first half contains a love song, and the second a story of romantic disappointment. The section of “Sweet” focuses entirely on his overpowering feelings toward the love interest. In “I Thought You Wanted to Dance”, the love interest is already engrossed with someone else. However, in this case, Tyler is not trying to convince the love interest as he did in “Wusyaname.”
There are a lot of playful, occasionally joyful moments on Call Me If You Get Lost. The sweaty flip of H-“Back Town’s Seat (Wit No Sheets)” is “Wusyaname,” which makes excellent use of YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Ty Dolla $ign; the narrative about Tyler’s mother is paid off with her own, almost amazingly colorful monologue. Even these, however, have a gloomy aura about them. Tyler raps in a low range and a slow flow in the midst of “Massa,” saying, “Everyone I ever loved had to be loved in the shadows.” This connects to the affair from “Wilshire,” and possibly to his previous relationships with men, but it’s tragic—the idea that such a pure emotion could be restrained by the secrecy it demands. Tyler seemed to be connected with himself at times like this, willing to be vulnerable on record. However, afterwards in the aforementioned verse, he raps about being so anxious that he has to sleep with a gun—his voice now so afflicted that it’s uncertain if it’s a plea for help, a joke, or perhaps both.