The legendary Queens rapper Tyler, The Creator compared to Yoda
Yoda is a much-revered figure within the lore of Star Wars, but, in terms of hip-hop, is it especially complimentary to be compared to this little, old, green alien that orders his words in an odd way? Tyler, the Creator seems to think so.
While appearing on the Rap Radar podcast in 2023, Tyler took the opportunity to speak extremely highly of one of his all-time hip-hop heroes. He was full of praise for Queens legend Q-Tip, without whom he believed he “wouldn’t exist.” Tip, he said, “is truly the Yoda of the pocket I exist in.”
It’s an odd bit of praise, but the point, seemingly, is that Q-Tip is a master of the particular end of hip-hop culture and rap music that Tyler is himself a part of. Tip paved the way for eccentric, colourful types like Tyler to emerge onto the scene in his wake.
While Q-Tip is celebrated for his pioneering work with A Tribe Called Quest, Tyler was actually drawn more to his solo work. Tip released Amplified, his first album as a solo artist, in 1999, and, while it did fairly well, it was subject to a fair amount of criticism from those who lamented the turn Tip had taken. Unlike Tribe’s jazzy, Afrocentric stylings that oozed positive eccentricity, Tip’s solo work was perceived by many as overly commercialised and shiny.
But Tyler thought there was an authenticity to this change in approach from Tip. He was “making some money” at the time, “traveling the world” and “able to buy nice things.” Thanks to his success as a rapper, he was probably “around beautiful women” a lot and doing “awesome things.” Why, then, wouldn’t his music reflect that?
The fact that Tip had started to incorporate these themes of excess and luxury into his work, while distasteful to some who’d come to love him through Tribe, represented “his true lifestyle” during that period in the late ’90s. Tyler admired him for being honest about it, and he was inspired by it as he came to become famous in his own right.
On his seventh album, 2021’s Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler introduced an alter ego called Tyler Baudelaire, who decidedly was fond of a life of luxury and travel. To his mind, Q-Tip’s embrace of his success in his work “made the blueprint” for him to follow with his Tyler Baudelaire character. He wanted to pay his “respects to Q-Tip for laying that blueprint” that he had personally learned from.
Tyler was aware that some people looked upon this celebration of wealth as “vapid” and “superficial,” but he pushed back against that reading. He suggested there may actually be a racial element to that sort of critique, implying that “white kids said I brag too much and the Black kids say it’s inspiring.”