The huge Tyler, The Creator song that was originally made as a joke
‘Yonkers’ was a breakthrough moment for Tyler, The Creator in 2011, but the Odd Future founder wasn’t taking it at all serious when he made it. Written and produced by Tyler, the track received attention for its controversial lyrics and striking music video.
Tyler, The Creator thought so little of the instrumental that it almost got left in the archives. While making the beat, the Los Angeles rapper was joking around in an attempt to emulate something that sounded like it came from New York. When he had some verses that he didn’t know what to do with, he decided to revisit the production and rap like he was from the East Coast.
“N*ggas don’t know that that beat was made as a joke,” he said in a conversation with Vince Staples. “I was trying to make a shitty New York beat and we was just rapping like we was from New York like we were r*tarded.”
He continued, “And then, I just had some random verses and I was just like, ‘I’ll just record it to this beat, this beat is kinda cool.’ And then n*ggas really liked it. That’s so nuts, because that shit was actually a fucking joke. I made that beat in literally eight minutes.”
‘Yonkers’ served as the first single off his debut album Goblin, which was released in May 2011 on XL Recordings. The explicit lyrics on the song were a major focus, with Tyler, The Creator rapping about stabbing Bruno Mars, crashing B.o.B’s plane and and saying “fuck” Hayley Williams.
Another key part of the campaign was Tyler’s self-directed music video, which found him eating a cockroach and committing suicide at the end. However, during an interview with Interview Magazine, he revealed there wasn’t any deep meaning behind what was being shown on screen.
“A lot of people think that stuff is deeper than it really is,” he said. “Some people just think too much. My manager knows I wanna be a video director, so he was like, ‘Hey, just write a video, write the treatment for it, and we’ll shoot it.’ So I was like, ‘All right, fuck it. I’ll eat a cockroach, I’ll throw up and then I’ll hang myself.'”
Tyler, The Creator stated there were no subliminal messages or secret meanings involved; it was just something he thought would look interesting. “I just like doing shit that I think is cool, and people happen to like it, so I’m pretty fortunate for that,” he said. “So I’m gonna just continue to be myself and do what I like. Again, people are just so quick to judge shit ’cause they don’t understand it. But I understand what I’m doing, and that’s all that should matter.”
Kanye West crowned ‘Yonkers’ the “video of 2011” less than two months into the year. A few years ago, Tyler revealed that the co-sign from Ye “really pushed” him in his career.