Only a few days after it was officially announced, Tyler, the Creator’s upcoming album, Scum Fuck Flower Boy, has leaked ahead of its July 21 release date, prompting a flurry of discussion around the album and what appears to be a major personal revelation contained therein.
Tyler, the Creator (maybe) opens up about his sexuality on leaked new album
Confessional lyrics on his latest record might recast some of his old statements on sexuality.
Flower Boy is the eccentric, often controversial rapper’s first album since 2015’s Cherry Bomb, and seems to continue his penchant for self-examination and self-effacement atop surrealist live instrumentation, in contrast to more brutalist earlier work like his 2011 solo debut Goblin. Based on internet reports, guests on the album include Lil Wayne, Jaden Smith, Estelle, and rising UK R&B singer Rex Orange County.
Prior to the leak, Tyler had already released the Flower Boy tracks “Who Dat Boy” and “911/Mr. Lonely.” The former is a murky and menacing collaboration with A$AP Rocky that skews closer to the sound of Goblin, while the latter is a split track that features Tyler’s Odd Future associate Frank Ocean (among others) and is more in line with the album’s meditative sonic palette.
But in the early aftermath of the leak, other Flower Boy tracks have come to dominate the discussion around the album. Most of the conversation has centered on the track “Garden Shed,” a song with lyrics about hidden love and feeling misunderstood that have caused many to speculate whether Tyler is coming out as gay or bisexual: “Garden shed for the garçons / Them feelings I was guardin’ / Heavy on my mind / All my friends lost / They couldn’t read the signs,” he raps on the song’s second verse.
But the hints on Flower Boy go beyond that one line. The album’s opener, “Foreword,” addresses the women that Tyler has been with in the past, with him rapping, “Shout-out to the girls that I lead on / For occasional head and always keeping my bed warm / And trying they hardest to keep my head on straight.” And on “I Ain’t Got Time,” Tyler’s bars seem to be even more transparent: “Next line, I’ll have ’em like whoa / I’ve been kissing white boys since 2004,” he raps.
That said, if there is an intentional coming-out narrative in Flower Boy, it’s complicated somewhat by Tyler’s history of casually using derogatory gay slurs as well as making opaque statements about his sexuality. On Goblin, he used anti-gay language more than 200 times, prompting both furor and assurances that he is “not homophobic,” and in 2015 he was criticized for releasing a shirt that reimagined a white supremacist logo in rainbow colors (he also happened to be holding hands with another man in the press photo).
Recently, though, Tyler’s feelings toward homosexuality appear to be coming into focus — or at least to the extent that they apply to one celebrity in particular. He’s tweeted about finding young Leonardo DiCaprio “beautiful,” and says, “I’m currently lookin’ for ’95 Leo” on “Who Dat Boy.” He’s also frequently joked about his sexuality through social media and even in an interview with Rolling Stone (in which, when asked whether his propensity for “gay humor” comes from suppressed feelings, he says he would “one hundred percent go gay” for DiCaprio circa 1996).
Tyler’s past statements make it difficult to ascertain to what extent he’s serious about any revelation regarding his sexuality — as evidenced by a tweet from April 2015 that says he “tried to come out the damn closet like four days ago and no one cared.” Predictably, that tweet is circulating again in light of the Flower Boy leak, prompting mixed reactions from fans at the perceived revelations on the album.
Coincidentally, the leak comes on the five-year anniversary of Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, which was accompanied by a similar discussion. Prior to the album’s release, Ocean self-published a letter describing an unrequited love he had for another man as a teenager, and the track “Forrest Gump” received attention because its subject was male. At the time, Tyler tweeted that he was “proud” of Ocean, among a host of related (and profane) thoughts.
In keeping with that connection, Tyler seems to reference Ocean on “Garden Shed” when he raps, “Truth is, since a youth kid, thought it was a phase / Thought it’d be like the Frank; poof, gone / But it’s still goin’ on.”
Tyler has not yet addressed the leaks or the speculation, but he did take time out of the day to post a video announcing a partnership with Converse.
