Tyler the Creator’s Stop Playing With Me: Time Travel to a 2000s Mix Tape

Fresh off of the critically and commercially successful Chromakopia, Tyler the Creator dropped a record with no pub at all. Similar to Beyoncè, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber (only weeks ago) before him, Tyler is big enough to do surprise drops. We now have Don’t Tap the Glass, which sees Tyler going a bit smaller and more ground level than the lofty collab heights of Chromakopia. There are some collabs on this record, but those songs don’t have the huge scope of previous collab tracks. Let’s see what Tyler cooked up in this new release.

Musically, this track has a 2000s mix tape vibe. Some of you remember getting mixtapes online from people like Jay Electronica or Chance the Rapper. These were fairly stripped back with the artist flowing over a relatively simple beat with interesting flourishes and tweaks, as opposed to more wall of sound beats from more studio based projects with larger budgets. Tyler has that vibe with a hard hitting synth heavy bop accented with some weighty bass. I love this beat and it matches Tyler’s high octane flow. The decision to go to a syth heavy mix was genius and is a great foil to Tyler’s raw style.

Lyrically Tyler has grown on me over the years. When he focuses on his fun wordplay and not just throwing out bars to shock people he is fire. Bars like “I can grant a wish like I’m Sinbad” and “I’m drownin’ like I swim bad” show his fun side, while the overall theme of Tyler not being someone to mess with comes through. This is similar to other tracks where Tyler calls out fake fans and haters alike…haters need to recognise his greatness and groupies need to get off him and be genuine. For Tyler, fame means that you can be played on both sides…either people talking you up to use you or hating you for no reason.

Tyler the Creator’s Stop Playing With Me is Tyler at his raw best. No fancy beats or effects to hide behind. Just a fire synth line and Tyler going for it. This is my favourite kind of Tyler track where he has a clear theme and is still raw, but having fun with his wordplay. Even though Don’t Tap the Glass has the same scope as previous records, it is a shot of adrenaline in hip hop.

Listen to Stop Playing With Me