Relationships end nastily, at least most of the time. Tyler, The Creator takes the failure of a love triangle between him, his lover and his ex-girlfriend as an opportunity to feed a new fucked-up alter ego with the frustration, disappointment and anger that builds up. Enter Igor. Whether the sixth album from the 28-year-old producer actually possesses biographical features or is yet another fictitious piece of the puzzle in his ongoing coming out can at best be answered with the help of gossip. But that’s also a minor matter. The fact that he publicly covered Frank Ocean’s back, and at the latest with the predecessor Flower Boy, already made it was clear that the supposedly homophobic lines of his early days were rather cynical phrases and not Tyler’s personal opinion. He himself had long before slaughtered the moral cow repeatedly being driven through the international music press. Nevertheless, the net pillorying was enough for his subsequent banishment from Great Britain, which did not stop the speech-singing faggot, bicycle collector and Odd Future co-founder from continuing to produce uncompromisingly contemporary hip-hop that was at least as brutally provocative lyrically as his era and combined West Coast influences with crusty horrorcore, psychedelic neo-soul or synth-funk. »Igor« is now not only the name of a lab assistant played by Bela Lugosi in the first theatrical adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, who willingly helps create a monster. On this album, he is also the personified rage after an unexpected relationship break-up, the dark side of numbing heartbreak. In Igor’s Theme two distinct deliveries already become clear: high pitched soul voices in cryptic hooks about falling in love and breaking up. Sometimes sung by Lil Uzi Vert and Solange, sometimes by Tyler, The Creator himself, who never wants to accept rejection. “Please don’t leave me now (I can make her leave)”. On the other side then the aggressively grainy resentment of Igor in the hotly served sample soup full of disparaging aphorisms. While the love story in Earfquake begins with sultry Motown vibes and builds up to euphoria with I Think, a few tracks later in New Magic Wand or What’s Good the butterflies in your stomach have already turned into a cramp, bubbling like a sour grime beat under distorted raps. “Sometimes you gotta close a door to open a window” Jerrod Carmichael states. That Tyler is doing nothing else here becomes clear at the latest with the almost gospel soul carnival Gone, Gone/Thank You or the querulously echoing Are We Still Friends?.
Igor
