Tyler, The Creator is currently at the center of a growing controversy centered on old social media posts and photos, including an alleged one featuring Ku Klux Klan attire and another showing what has been likened to a Nazi salute.
The images in question, seen below, stem from early into Tyler’s career. Notably, they’ve been resurfaced amid a larger controversy stemming from a debate spurred by fan reactions to a tribute post Tyler shared last week in response to the news of the untimely death of neo-soul legend D’Angelo.
In the image featuring the salute, Tyler is seen wearing white facepaint, not unlike the satirical look he donned for the “Buffalo” music video a decade ago. As for the alleged KKK-related image, its exact origins weren't immediately clear, and Tyler's face is not visible in the photo.
Longtime fans will note that the public presentation of the Tyler of today is much different than the Tyler the world saw during his initial rise, particularly amid the Odd Future collective’s run in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Apparent in some of Tyler’s earlier work was a tendency toward a certain edgelordiness not uncommon during that period, with Tyler not the only one fond of this approach at the time.
The resurfaced images making the rounds in recent days have inspired criticism on X and elsewhere, with additional past posts also having been pointed out.
While some of the resurfaced posts can arguably be attributed to the aforementioned edgelordiness that was rampant in culture at the time, others, including posts about George Zimmerman in 2013 and Black History Month in 2014, have been argued as being far more problematic, regardless of when, or why, they were originally shared.
For now, Tyler has not publicly addressed the renewed attention on these posts. However, this isn’t the first time Tyler has been at the center of such a debate. On “Thought I Was Dead,” a track off last year’s widely acclaimed Chromakopia album, he addressed “old tweets” and “old t-shirts” like so:
"White boys mockin' this shit and y'all mad at me? Y'all can suck my dick
Pull up old tweets, pull up old t-shirts, all that, I'll moonwalk over that bitch"
As reported at the time, the “old t-shirts” lyric was fairly widely assumed to be a reference to a 2015-era t-shirt design in which a neo-Nazis-associated symbol was flipped into a LGBTQIA+ pride logo.
Similarly, he addressed those “bringin’ old lyrics up” on the 2021 track “Manifesto,” off his Grammy-winning Call Me If You Get Lost album:
"Internet bringin' old lyrics up, like I hide the shit
What's your address? I could probably send you a copy, bitch
I was canceled before canceled was with Twitter fingers
Protestin' outside my shows, I gave them the middle finger"
Last month, Tyler suggested to fans on the final stop of a world tour that a “very long break” was likely on the horizon, due in part to him being “fucking not 20 no more.” In December, he’ll be seen making his formal acting debut in Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet.