Tyler, The Creator Shows Joy and Rage at Buku

Without props, the rapper took fans on an emotional journey on his “Call Me if You Get Lost” tour stop in New Orleans.

[Updated] Tyler, The Creator has joyful rage. A sickening green light fills the stage and expands across the crowd as the opening sirens of “Who Dat Boy” wail with warning of something big to come. A sea of phones are pulled out of pockets as the tension builds, Tyler marching in place while the spring breeze blows his leopard-collared shirt in the wind. The beat drops, and with it a pyrotechnic pop of firecrackers and flames.

“Who dat boy?/ Who him is?” Tyler growls while leaning left and right with grace. He throws his arm around in the air like it’s where the music comes from, and the crowd jumps with him as he bounces across the stage, every movement an act of resistance. “New Orleans” he says with a smile in his eyes. “Motherfuckin N.O.”

Tyler, The Creator is a one-man show, and if his headlining set at Buku ‘22 proves anything, it’s that he doesn’t need anyone or anything but himself and a microphone. “Normally I have a boat and a Rolls Royce, but it didn’t make it,” he explains to the crowd, gesturing to the empty stage behind him. Tyler is on his Call Me If You Get Lost tour, where normally halfway through the set he rides a vintage speed boat through the audience and steps inside a mint green Rolls Royce before rapping “LUMBERJACK.” But last night, there weren’t any butlers to guide him to boats, or props that create Wes Anderson-esque scenes. He walked onto the stage deadpan with one leather-bound suitcase as if it were the only thing MSY didn’t lose. His forest green Golf Wang cardigan didn’t stay on for long, as he threw it into the audience mid-song to a lucky fan on the barricade. Unsurprisingly, Tyler managed to steal the whole weekend single-handedly, no headliner props or set needed, grabbing the festival by the shirt collar with his baby blue painted nails.

In his career thus far, Tyler has had a lot of haters. He enjoys getting a rise out of people, and those who aren’t in on the joke tend to get pissed off. Tyler is young and angry on his earlier albums, Cherry Bomb and Wolf, and on them he plowed through anyone in his path. At the same time that he tore off the dogs biting at his heels, he tried not to fight himself and be the reason for his own fall.

2017’s Flower Boy marks a huge shift, where Tyler discussed being gay without a joke attatched to it. His albums that follow show him opening up in a way he has yet to before. While he made sure that we don’t lose the importance of feeling rage, Tyler rapped about love and getting his heart broken. He describes real feelings of confusion, jealousy, insecurity, and betrayal. “Can I get serious with y’all?” he asked the crowd Saturday night as the lights turned electric blue and digital snow started falling on the big screen. The opening flutes of “MASSA'' played as he breathed heavily. “We ain’t gotta pay attention to the stuff that he battles / Everyone I ever loved had to be loved in the shadows,” he rapped as he almost fell to his knees.

Later in the set, the distorted synth and metallic snare of “IFHY” washes over the crowd. The music cuts out as the audience–prompted–screams the next line at Tyler, “I fucking hate you.”

“But I love you” he responds. Purple strobe lights flash overhead as he yells the lyrics, “I wanna strangle you,” pain registering on his face. “I’m in love,” Tyler sings as he doubles over. It’s as if he were punched in the gut.

Tyler’s love for his own music is apparent. He dances to all of his songs as if they aren’t his own, with an energy that could power an entire country. Multiple times during the set, he runs across the stage to dance with the ASL interpreters, looking them in the eyes and smiling as they both rap the same lyrics. “You ready?” he says to the one on stage with him as the intro to the globetrotting track “HOT WIND BLOWS” begins to play. She nods in response, and they perform the whole song together.

Tyler, the Creator show at Buku, by Victoria Conway

Tyler and his fans both love his music for the same reasons. They scream the lyrics as he screams them too. He knows when they’ll freak out over something, and smiles to himself as he spins around the stage, sparks falling and strobes flashing. Towards the end of his set, he plays a compilation of a bunch of his older tracks for the OG fans. When the opening screams of “Tamale '' ring out with the obnoxious cowbell clanking, two teenage girls in front of me look at each other, scream, and grab each other by the hand, pushing through the sea of people to get closer.

Tyler runs into the audience during the track “I THINK,” hugging people, grabbing inflatable light-up toys and dancing with them through the crowd. “I think I’ve fallen in love / This time I think it’s for real,” he sings into the mic while young people on the barricade mirror the lyrics back to him.

At the end of the night, Tyler looks out into the crowd of thousands before him. “Alright New Orleans, it’s my time.” He walks off the stage in his black penny loafers as if he were walking down the street. He knows he gave everything, and showed us all of his sides.