The one rapper Tyler, The Creator would never work with
Tyler, the Creator has collaborated with some of the biggest names in the music business, but there are some artists he doesn’t ever want to go near. As he explained back in 2014, there’s one particular much-loved rapper that he wouldn’t ever want to work with.
Speaking to Passion of the Weiss, Tyler reflected on some of the collaborative projects that he had embarked upon by that point in time, a few albums deep into his career. There were some impressive figures on his list: the likes of Pharrell, Erykah Badu and Pusha T. But one name that was missing was Eminem.
“Naw. I wouldn’t work with him,” Tyler said, when asked if he’d like to add Eminem to his list of collaborators. Given that he and Em have had rocky relations over the years, that probably isn’t a surprise. Except that things hadn’t actually soured between them yet. In 2014, when this interview was conducted, there was no bad blood at all.
“He’s god,” Tyler said of the elder rapper. “Some people you shouldn’t even touch.”
Tyler’s love for Eminem was palpable during this interview, but, within a matter of years, he would inadvertently find himself embroiled in a beef with his idol. After Eminem released the song ‘Walk On Water,’ Tyler took to Twitter to characterise it as “horrible.” That did not go down well with its maker.
Eminem responded the following year with a diss on his track ‘Fall’ from the album Kamikaze, in which he refers to Tyler by a homophobic slur. Em later expressed regret about the homophobia of his response.
Appearing on Mavericks with Maverick Carter in 2024, Tyler spoke about the beef he’d ended up in with Emimen. Expressing regret for his initial criticism of ‘Walk On Water,’ Tyler explained that he had not fully appreciated where Eminem was in his personal life at the time he released it.
“He probably felt like I was attacking him,” Tyler said. “I thought I was just like, ‘I don’t like the music.’ He was in a different part of his life and probably felt like I was attacking him. Now I feel so bad about saying that stuff because my perspective was so limited.”
He went on to stress his love for Em, which, despite all the negativity, seemed to endure the tensions between them. “I love Eminem,” he said. “That dude taught me how to rap. I learned how to put words together in rhythm because of some of the Eminem stuff I was hearing and storytelling and things like that.” Maybe, then, after all the rancour, they may end up working together, after all?