The 50 best albums of 2021, No 5: Tyler, the Creator – Call Me If You Get Lost
In 2010, Tyler, the Creator tweeted that he wanted a Gangsta Grillz tape, the prolific DJ Drama mixtape series which informed much of the best hip-hop of the 2000s. Tyler has lived out a lot of his dreams in the intervening years. After his collective Odd Future changed the game in the early 2010s, their hellraising gave way to radical art from members Frank Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt, Syd and Tyler, who became one of the most respected rappers and producers around. He’s collaborated with many of the artists he obsessed over back then. He’s written music scores and scripted TV shows; he won a Grammy; he runs a revered fashion line and a successful festival.
His sixth album, Call Me If You Get Lost, finds the artist reaching 30 and reflecting on his life so far: the joys and luxuries (“It’s opulence, baby!”), his growth from the shock-rap days in the context of contemporary social media “activism” (“Internet bringin’ old lyrics up like I hide the shit”), and the sacrifices along the way (“Everyone I ever loved had to be loved in the shadows”). Between tracks, DJ Drama “hosts” the record, offering wry tags and playful stories from their global travels (like how in Switzerland, “a young lady just fed me French vanilla ice-cream!”). Gangsta Grillz tapes have fallen off the mainstream radar in recent years: for Tyler to breathe new life into the format in 2021 is a testament not only to his ambition and vision, but his ability to fulfil them.
Call Me If You Get Lost is decadent and luxurious, wielding samples curated with the expertise of a true cratedigger. There’s the bass clarinet that swims through opener Sir Baudelaire (lifted from Billy Cobham via Westside
Gunn), the humid meandering flute on Hot Wind Blows; the mesmerising, shiny Houston R&B on Wusyaname, and the deliciously wobbly, heated quasi-Lovers Rock of Sweet/I Thought You Wanted to Dance. Features from the likes of Lil Wayne, Pharrell and even Tyler’s mum enhance and embellish without detracting. Compositionally, CMIYGL is a showcase of Tyler’s reverence and nostalgia for what came before, channelled into his own present and future.
Of course, also central to this album’s beauty is the fact that Tyler can rap,crafting engaging tales out of deft, intentional flow.He has always been a romantic, but here he bears a softer side than ever, forced to recognise that love, so often, is about timing. It might seem like it’s all coming together for him, but look between the cracks of the polished veneer and wanderlust and there is caustic frustration and yearning.
During the eight minutes of Wilshire, he recounts in raw detail “the only thing missing” in his life, falling for the partner of a friend, and the heavy guilt as he tries to figure out what to do. He continues that he has to keep his loved ones “safe from the commentary and spotlight and thoughts / ’Cause it’s just a story for the people outside of it / But I guess you’re just another chapter in the book”. For all that he can brag about his successes and achievements (though, in the interest of being humble, he notes on Blessed that he still can’t get his hair to grow), they have obstructed his ability to live a normal life. (Yet in telling this muddy story, he has given way to speculation on who the friend and would-be lover are, arguably predestining them to the same.)
“Come get lost with me,” Tyler offers on Blessed. It’s a tender invitation that comes late into an album that has already guided the listener through a bright, expansive and occasionally sentimental world drawn together seamlessly, with the tracks – in true mixtape fashion – melding into one another. So often, we focus on beginnings and endings. On Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler, the Creator masterfully reminds us that life is all about the journey, growth, confusion, pain and magic in between.