Tyler The Creator: Wolf

Few albums have been more anticipated in the world of rap over the past decade than Tyler The Creator’s third release. Not without reason: as leader and co-founder of hip-hop collective OFWGKTA and as arguably rap’s most precocious talent, his name carries weight.

Viewed on its own merits WOLF is a very good album. At its best, it reveals the more soulful side of Tyler. He fuses the voices of Frank Ocean and Pharrell Williams to his angry and deranged raving to beautiful effect ‑ while maintaining the dark narrative style of his former works. ‘IFHY’ and ‘Awkward’ in particular are on par with very best of Tyler’s work to date.
‘Domo23’ strikes an intriguing note: musically it’s classic Odd Future at their best but lyrically he’s talking about how much money he’s earning and how big his house is. Is this the same man who opened his first album with, ‘I created OF cause I feel we’re more talented than forty year old rappers talking about Gucci’? With this record, it feels like he’s taken two steps in their direction. ‘Colossus’ on the other hand is his ‘Stan’ moment – a great song, but it’s been done before.
Thing is Tyler’s been making great records since he was 18, and this is not the genre-redefining record you suspect he has within him.

Key Track: ‘Pigs’