Tyler, the Creator

Long before he emerged as a significant figure in alternative hip-hop, Tyler, the Creator (real name, Tyler Gregory Okonma) was profiled in a 2008 Los Angeles Times story about budding rappers in the city's high schools. Only 16 at the time, Tyler was described as "a little miniature Andre 3000" who "operates at a significantly higher voltage than the average teen." At the time Tyler was already publishing a magazine called Odd Future, a name he would be associated with later on. Raised in the same town (Hawthorne) as the Beach Boys, Tyler was born of mixed Nigerian, African-American and white Canadian heritage. By the time he'd graduated high school he'd been to twelve different schools, and progressed from designing imaginary albums to recording real tracks at home. His first mixtape, 2009's Bastard was released the year of his graduation, Pitchfork named it the #32 best album of that year. Two years later the single "Yonkers" became a viral hit and led to the XL label signing him for the second album Goblin. Around the same time Tyler launched his expanded hip-hop crew, the ten- member Odd Future (officially, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All), a group whose colorful personalities and wild irreverence played like a more extreme Wu-Tang Clan. Future star Frank Ocean was one of the early members, and later credited his friendship with Tyler for inspiring him to get creative a s a songwriter. Odd Future became known as much for its offbeat comedy as much as its music; 2012 saw the premiere of their TV show, Loiter Squad, on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. They also launched their online radio station, Dash Radio the following year. Meanwhile Tyler was racking up high-profile collaborations (his second album Wolf featured Ocean, Pharrell, Erykah Badu and more) and occasionally raising eyebrows. Tyler also created a dark-humored, inarguably weird series of Mountain Dew commercials featuring a gangsta goat; these were quickly pulled by PepsiCo. 2015 brought the album Cherry Bomb, which an even splashier cast of guests (Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Schoolboy Q.). There was also more controversy as Tyler's lyrics caused Theresa May, then U.K. Home Secretary, to ban him from U.K. visits and made him cancel 2015 festival shows in Leeds and Reading. Ironically the Cherry Bomb album included some of his most positive lyrics in between the wild free-associations. During 2017 Tyler guested on a new Frank Ocean song ("Biking," released on Ocean's Blonder Radio channel) and announced that he would be writing a theme for science TV personality Bill Nye.