CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST (2021) – Tyler, The Creator

Columbia, 2021

Not exactly continuing down the path of IGOR, nor a full return to the abrasive sound of Tyler, The Creator’s early work, CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST is a marriage of Tyler’s vintage energy and matured musical palette with a European island destination wedding.

Like other Tyler albums of the past, CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST has a narrative throughline. From the introductory “CORSO” to the eight and a half minute long melodic narrative “WILSHIRE”, Tyler tells the story of a romance between him and his friend’s girl. “SWEET / I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE” is the height of this story where “SWEET” is the apex of Tyler’s love for the girl, while “I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE” is the inevitable heartbreak in the story.

Despite the uniqueness of 2019’s IGOR, Tyler’s return to tough, snarling rapping is a welcome sound. Tracks like “CORSO”, “LUMBERJACK”, and “MANIFESTO” sound like vintage Goblin and Wolf era Tyler. They have the vibe of the material that shot Tyler into furious internet stardom. “CORSO” is a bit rough around the edges, but intentionally. Tyler has an abrasive delivery over a booming piano-led and bass-supported instrumental. The lead single, “LUMBERJACK”, follows a similar pattern. Things come full circle on “MANIFESTO” where Tyler addresses his controversial past and the idea of being fake woke and superficial allyship.

The return to his earlier style is balanced out by the progression of what we heard on IGOR. “RUN IT UP”, “RISE!”, and “SAFARI” continue the trend of eccentric and artistic tracks, but this time around they’re heavy with horns—and DJ Drama. Unlike the tracks that allude to early Tyler, this trio of tracks isn’t heavy with bass. Instead, they’re rather light and filled with independent melodies that mesh together seamlessly. There’s also an almost 8-bit, low quality effect on “RUNITUP” that you’d expect thrown in somewhere on IGOR just to fuck with you.

The tracks with sounds that feel exclusive to CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST are “WUSYANAME”, “HOT WIND BLOWS” and “SWEET / I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE”. These three tracks are stylistically unlike anything we’ve heard from Tyler before. The album’s vacation ambience is on full display on these tracks.

On “WUSYANAME”, Tyler raps about chasing after this girl and trying to get to know her. He does this over a ‘90s R&B instrumental that samples H-Town’s “Back Seat (Wit No Sheets)”. This track stands out in the record stylistically and in a good way. It’s a smooth track that is both fun and groovy. YoungBoy Never Broke Again gives us some sing rapping (whoa!) and Ty Dolla $ign’s harmony and ad-lib contributions are high quality as they always are.

“HOT WIND BLOWS” is another highlight on the record. The flute-heavy production paints a backdrop of a European island villa and the vocal parts of the sample paint the track in majesty and elegance. We also get a fire Lil Wayne verse that is up there with the best Wayne features.

Track 10 on the record, like most other Tyler track 10s, is a two-parter. “SWEET” sees Tyler and Brent Faiyaz collaborating again to create a—for a lack of better words—sweet ‘80s-inspired ballad. Tyler and Faiyaz here skillfully trade melodies over a sparkling synth instrumental. The second part of the track, “I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE” has a super cool dub-inspired instrumental. Though completely separate in both style and theme, the two parts are sonically similar to the perfect degree so that they blend well on the same track, but are still differentiated from each other.

CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST is the pinnacle of Tyler, The Creator’s work up to this point. He’s at the point of his career now that he has gone through multiple personal musical eras and has different pools that he can pull from to fuse into a larger, more complex piece of work. This record takes the intensity of early Tyler, the eccentricity and vulnerability of Flower Boy and IGOR, and a new love for travel that’s accentuated amidst a global pandemic, to create a multi-faceted and complex record that has something for every Tyler, The Creator fan. Though this is a culmination of Tyler’s career so far, it seems to only be the first step in a new era for Tyler, and everyone should be excited for what’s yet to come from Bunnyhop aka Tyler Baudelaire.

Favourite tracks: SIR BAUDELAIRE, CORSO, WUSYANAME, HOT WIND BLOWS, RUNITUP, SWEET / I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE, WILSHIRE