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I only have 15 minutes with Tyler, the Creator. He’s a busy man—in the midst of a record-breaking world tour, among myriad other projects—and so we have a lot of ground to cover. “Ask for forgiveness later,” he tells me, when I warn him that we don’t have much time and I have a lot of questions. “You need to learn how to finesse!”
Probably true. What are his tips, then? “A real finesser never gives their finessing away,” he replies in his familiar West Coast drawl, unperturbed by the surrounding buzz of his entourage.
We are here in London—on a small bench in a particularly botanical corner of Kensington’s Roof Gardens—to talk about style: shoes, specifically, considering the imminent launch of his latest collection for Converse, part of his nine-year-long collaboration with the iconic American label. Curated by Tyler, 1908, which marks Tyler’s 20th collection with Converse, serves as a celebration of its vast archive and rich history. There are sky blue deck sneakers and forest-green jogging shoes, reimagined through Tyler’s unique eye with a touch of Golf le Fleur, his own apparel line. “Everything you see me make is because I liked it,” he says, matter-of-facty. “I just picked the shoes I wanted to wear.”
“I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, I’m not trying to do nothing too new,” he’d noted during a panel talk for an audience of fans, aspiring musicians, and friends of Converse earlier in the day. “I just think [the archive designs] are ill. Converse have the widest range of ill shit.”
The impetus for the new collection came just over a year ago, when Tyler headlined Coachella and created a dossier of printouts from the back catalogue to give a presentation to the Converse team. “It’s one of the fastest shoes we’ve ever made,” confirms Lindsay Almeida, Converse’s global senior director of entertainment and sports marketing. For Almeida’s part, working with Tyler just makes sense. “Nine-point-nine times out of 10, we say yes to [Tyler’s ideas]. That’s the kind of trust we’ve built over the years. Everything you do, it might not click in the moment, but overall, it’s right. We’ve been on this ride for a long time and we just keep it real.”
This trust didn’t come out of the blue. “From 2011 to 2016, I was building a resumé of things that worked in my realm. So when I did link [with Converse in 2016], they had a reference point to say, ‘You know what, let’s trust this guy’s idea, because it clearly worked in some type of way,’” Tyler explained, fielding questions from the crowd. “That’s the importance of trusting yourself and just putting shit out so you can build that resumé.”
It’s a testament to the working relationships Tyler has fostered almost 20 years into his career, too. From exploding onto the scene with his friends (via the now disbanded music collective Odd Future) to creating a de-facto record label in his teens, he’s always had an entrepreneurial streak, boosted by his tight-knit network of kindred spirits. Odd Future alumni include the likes of Frank Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt, and Syd, who, through their comedy sketches and outrageous beats, would go on on to change the face of music-making, one genre-defying, agenda-setting project at a time.
The now 34-year-old has worked with his managers, Kelly and Christian Clancy, for 15 years, no small feat in a fickle industry: They ditched their high-flying jobs at Interscope Records to join forces with Tyler. “[Tyler] exists in a world where, if he follows the algorithm, that’s not him,” says Christian. “He has to go over there and let the algorithm adjust to him.”
It’s clear that inside the sprawling, kaleidoscopic machine that is Tyler’s brain, Clancy et al are the driving force that facilitates his self-described “delusion.” “To make stuff, you have to be delusional,” Tyler says. “And when you’re delusional, you need people around you that trust you… I knew what I wanted to do since I was legit five years old. This is the only thing I was supposed to do.”
Right now, Tyler is in the middle of his Chromakopia tour, fresh off the success of his number-one album of the same name. How does he feel about getting that elusive top spot? “I’m happy that people like it. The number one thing is awesome,” he says. I get the impression that he’s not too bothered about the charts, though: “The fact the shows are doing well is the real thing. That’s what people don’t talk about. Folks get number one and couldn’t sell 10 tickets to a show.” And yet, he adds: “I’m art first, but I’m not an idiot. Some people would be like, ‘Oh I don’t care [about the charts].’ But bro, this is still a business.”
He smashed three sold-out nights at the O2—his first time performing in London since his Grammy-winning album Igor came out in 2019—to 20,000 adoring fans clad in Golf Wang, more jorts than I ever thought possible, Converse, and, of course, various shades of green. Some of his fans even think he owns the color. “I own the color green?!” he clasps his shirt in disbelief. “I guess it is my favorite color, that’s cool to hear they have that association with me. But… that’s a color.”
Today, Tyler looks as preppy as ever: He has on brown pants that he’s been wearing “for the last five years,” a camel anorak festooned with scattered Le Fleur badges, a Darryl (Le Fleur’s canine mascot) crossbody cardholder, and the Converse Naut-1 boat shoe in starlight blue. I’m curious to know if he adheres to certain style rules. “Dude, the menswear world? They all dress alike and follow these specific rules of how you’re supposed to do it. And there’s nothing I be seeing where I feel like, ‘Oh, he really did it his own way,’ whether it’s with the colors or the sizing or the accessories. So, I don’t even follow the dos and don’ts, it’s just the shit that I’m on,” he tells me. “I could put on the same sweater and slacks and deck shoes as the next guy, but it’ll look a bit different because I’m not following the rules.”
He pauses. “Did that sound mean?”
I don’t think so. “Ok, fire.”
This conviction is central to why the world keeps falling in love with Tyler, the Creator. His credo isn’t one of people-pleasing or selling out, and he isn’t out to shock or gag for the sake of going viral. “I think we’ve gotten to a place where everything is meant for everyone and I don’t think that’s the thing,” he says.
I ask him whether he’d ever consider bringing his LA-based festival Camp Flog Gnaw, which is about to enter its 10th year, to the UK. “Probably not,” he says without missing a beat. “It’s easy to capitalize on those moments and think, ‘Ooh, let’s take it there.’ But I think it’s super sweet when you have to go somewhere for a specific thing. I feel the same way about clothes. Not everything is for everyone, and that’s okay.”
There are a few stores, exclusive to London, that he’s excited to visit whilst he’s in town. Can we get a recommendation for the readers? “I’m good, cos I gatekeep,” he says. “I like special things, and damn, that’s my thing! That’s just me though. It’s not law, I don’t think it’s right or wrong [to gatekeep].”
The remainder of our conversation is derailed by a lengthy tangent about T-shirts, Beyoncé, and podcasts. Somehow, Tyler has begun interviewing me.
“What kind of T-shirts do you like?” he asks sincerely. Any with a good shape, really. My favorite is a black Beyoncé one from her Renaissance tour merch. “How was that concert for you?” Amazing. I’m excited to see her again in a couple of weeks. “You’re a big Beyoncé fan,” he states. Yes—I can’t gatekeep her, sadly. “What are your favorite Beyoncé tracks?” I reel off several. (Tyler’s favourite is “Kitty Kat.”) “If you were president, who would you ban from making podcasts?” All men, I joke.
Tyler, I realize, is an equal-opportunity hater. “I agree with that. But I would go to the extreme and say, ‘Everyone get the fuck out of here. Go get a real hobby.’”
