When he was seven, Tyler Okonma enjoyed creating covers of imaginary albums: he worked as a kind of art director, making covers (cutting out and composing images he found in newspapers), writing the tracklist and thinking about the concept of the album. More or less 10 years later, Tyler, who has now added “the Creator” to his name, has actually given substance to his youthful vision. Also he launch his tyler the creator merch the most famous merch in the present era.
Together with a group of friends from Los Angeles, Tyler founded Odd Future – short name for OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All) – a collective that initially wanted to be a magazine and that found itself among the most influential succeeded to “alternative rap” in the 2000s, if not the most influential, and breaking, daughter of the Internet and the Angelina skate culture.
Childhood:
Still 10 years later and Tyler the Creator produces IGOR, his sixth album, which he himself announces as “a completely new thing, unrelated to the past”, and which he anticipates with a series of cryptic videos that reveal the artistic evolution of an ex -skate boy. Almost simultaneously with the release of IGOR, Tyler collaborated – for the third year in a row – with Converse for a velvet release of the Converse GOLF Le FLEUR line, which has effectively launched an iconic brand like Converse and made Tyler a protagonist of the fashion game. . But how did it happen that a black kid from Los Angeles wearing Slipknot t-shirts ended up changing the aesthetics of a good part of contemporary urban music forever?
Performances:
It all starts in February 2011. Or rather, this is the date when even the mainstream universe notices Tyler. Impossible to ignore his “physical” performance at the Jimmy Fallon Show, where he and Hodgy Beats show up on stage wearing balaclavas and start jumping on the sofas. It is the essence of the Odd Future way of being, of young punks on skate and bicycle united by the same passions, who wander around Fairfax, the LA neighborhood where Stussy, BAPE and Supreme are located.
For his first appearance on TV, Tyler wears a Supreme box logo hoodie and a 5-panel hat also from Supreme, the skate brand founded in 1994 by James Jebbia in New York on LaFayette Street. For years, Supreme has been the best kept secret of the American skate subculture: a sort of Holy Grail of the skate aesthetic: “A small group, a secret society,” Tyler called them in 2010.
Over the years, he saw his popularity grow, until the boom of these years, in which he became the leader of the predominant street wear culture. The main responsible for this explosion could be Tyler: in 2018 the streetwear magazine High snobiety published some data that partially corroborate this thesis: “they are data from Google trends that detail the relevance of different artists like lil peep merch and their association with Supreme “. The most sought-after name in association with the brand was that of Tyler, especially around 2011, just when his media exposure began to increase.
Fame till now
The main responsible for this explosion could be Tyler: in 2018 the streetwear magazine Highsnobiety published some data that partially corroborate this thesis: “they are data from Google trends that detail the relevance of different artists and their association with Supreme “. The most sought-after name in association with the brand was that of Tyler, especially around 2011, just when his media exposure began to increase. “They are Google trends data detailing the relevance of different artists and their association with Supreme.” The most sought-after name in association with the brand was that of Tyler, especially around 2011, just when his media exposure began to increase.