The Kanye West song that made Tyler, The Creator cry: “My eyes just started watering”
Tyler, The Creator has a deep love of music. You can hear it in the evolution of his albums and the passion in his voice when he breaks down his favourite songs from other artists. Never afraid of raw emotions, the Odd Future rapper once revealed that a Kanye West song made him break down into tears.
In 2018, between the release of his Flower Boy and IGOR albums, Tyler was asked if it was true that he cried while listening to Kanye’s latest album. “Yeah, when I heard ‘Violent Crimes,'” he told GQ. “Those chords, like, fucking—I can’t explain what they do to me.
“I always talk about chords and probably sound like a fucking dork, but since I was fucking four years old, I would always say it was a slant or it went up, ’cause I didn’t know what chords were, but it was a thing that music did that I just felt in my fucking body. And that was the most recent song that did it to me. Like, one out of ten, that shit did it a 12, and I just—my eyes just started watering. I couldn’t explain it. I hope when I die, it gets explained to me.”
‘Violent Crimes’ is the closing track on Kanye’s 2018 album, Ye. The song finds West discussing his changing perspective towards women following the birth of his daughters, North and Chicago.
He raps in the song, “N*ggas is savage, n*ggas is monsters/ N*ggas is pimps, n*ggas is players/ ‘Til n*ggas have daughters, now they precautious/ Father, forgive me, I’m scared of the karma/ ‘Cause now I see women as somethin’ to nurture/ Not somethin’ to conquer I hope she like Nicki, I make her a monster/ Not havin’ ménages, I’m just bein’ silly.”
Despite the emotional nature of the track, Kanye previously revealed he didn’t actually write it. “Pardison Fontaine wrote the ‘Violent Crimes’ verses,” he wrote on social media. “I changed two lines. He wrote the entire song though. Cyhi Cons Pardi. The ghost in the industry.” Nicki Minaj appears in the song’s outro with a spoken word piece.
Tyler’s admiration goes both ways. In 2020’s Cherry Bomb documentary, Kanye admitted that his 2013 album Yeezus wouldn’t exist without Tyler. “Work with your hands, it keeps you earnest,” Ye told Tyler. “You see the lines on your record in my hands right here. I’m glad you put that battery in my back when you said that line, man. That’s one of your jobs in hip-hop.”
He added, “I don’t think there would have been a Yeezus if it wasn’t for you. I don’t think it would’ve been this verse right here if it wasn’t for you, or the shit [Lil Wayne] just did. Because it’s certain n*ggas who push you differently.”
The two artists collaborated on ‘Smuckers’ from 2015’s Cherry Bomb album. However, that wasn’t the only time they crossed paths. Kanye provided backing vocals on ‘Puppet’ in 2019, with Tyler returning the favour on ‘Come to Life’ from the deluxe version of 2021’s Donda.