04/12/2024

Music ae Amor

The Impeccable Music

Review: Tyler, the Creator presents his alter egos in full view at Oakland Arena

Review: Tyler, the Creator presents his alter egos in full view at Oakland Arena
Review: Tyler, the Creator presents his alter egos in full view at Oakland Arena
Tyler, the Creator performs at Oakland Arena. Photo: Courtesy Todd Inoue

Tyler, the Creator is regularly evolving. The Los Angeles rapper, producer and entrepreneur is a restless inventive who continues to thrust artistic boundaries with each album. The only constants are his enthusiasm and his Grinch-like rasp.

The profane skateboarding ringleader of the songs collective Odd Long term, who broke via in 2011 with the chart-topping debut “Goblin,” now pushes a Rolls-Royce in 2022, and his clearly show at Oakland Arena on Friday, April 1 — his very first time back to the Bay Area due to the fact headlining the Twin Peaks stage at Exterior Lands final calendar year — was the present-day manifestation of his unorthodox and, at situations, audacious brain.

The tour in assist of his seventh studio album, “Call Me If You Get Dropped,” provided opening sets by avant-garde wild male Teezo Landing, straightforward rhyme spitter Vince Staples and R&B star Kali Uchis. The merged outcome felt like a mini festival, cautiously curated by Tyler, correct down to the interstitial tunes performed in between functions that provided Beenie Man, Erykah Badu and the B-52’s.

The Oakland group was youthful — a combine of those who came of age during Odd Future’s heyday who show up to be semiresponsible adults and all those who arrived of age for the duration of pandemic constraints, when “Igor” (2019) and “Call Me If You Get Lost” (2021) offered essential comfort and ease and release. Several were clad in Golf finery, repping Tyler’s manufacturer of preppy leisurewear. All were being processing intense inner thoughts to his personal songs.

Tyler’s stage — a two-story Tiffany-blue Victorian household complete with wrought-iron fencing and staircases on each conclude — fashioned the show’s centerpiece. Silhouettes from time to time filled the bay home windows, and lighting outcomes boosted the environment. Pyrotechnics and firepots additional exclamation details.

In the course of his very first song, “Sir Baudelaire,” a reference to his luxe change ego, Tyler entered the phase in a classic Rolls-Royce, rapping about his lavish life style. Aside from brief times with a chauffeur, Tyler was the sole figure onstage for his whole exhibit. Remaining the aim of consideration intensifies his interpretive dance moves, akin to adhere-figure animation. He has calmed down significantly given that the previous times when he thrived on chaos, but still riled the group with center fingers and encouraged it to boo, which turned into obscene chants.

In excess of 80 minutes, Tyler, the Creator spotlighted his duality — the light-weight and dark, the underdog and top canine, the id and superego. The property symbolized both of those security and abandonment. He well balanced densely packed rhymes (he does not rap as significantly as chew up bars) with his lithe singing voice.

He bought in his emotions in the course of the crack-up confessional “Ifhy” and the vulnerable “Don’t leave, it is my fault” singalong “Earfquake.” His newest track with Japanese producer and style designer Nigo, “Come On, Let us Go,” was a blast of petty frustration about not getting punctual. He contrasted these times with charismatic bravado, placing off wild scenes for the duration of uptempo “Corso,” “Lemonhead” and “Lumberjack.” For the duration of the concussive “Who Dat Boy,” Tyler ceded the spotlight to a window silhouette projection of A$AP Rocky rapping his strains.

At the show’s midpoint, a motorboat took Tyler to a second stage at the far end of the arena fashioned as a beach-grass-strewn dune. He dropped anchor and ran through a set that included the singalong “Boredom,” “9/11/Mr. Lonely,” “Eyes Wide Open” and “See You Again” — the latter snuck in a freestyle about late Bay Area hyphy icon Mac Dre.

A medley of older songs fired up his older generation, including “She” (Frank Ocean’s lines were eaten up by the crowd), “Smuckers” and “Yonkers,” which omitted the violent tirades against pop stars Bruno Mars, Hayley Williams and B.O.B.

This second set gave those on the far end of the arena an extended visit with their antihero. On the way back to the main stage, the boat stopped and he performed the reggae jam “I Thought You Wanted to Dance” for fans in the middle. These touches felt intimate, giving everyone in the nearly 20,000-capacity stadium a chance to vibe along with Tyler.

During a break, after telling a sad story about driving up to San Francisco when he was 19 to skateboard and getting crack smoke blown in his face, he gushed over the Bay Area.

“I’m not too familiar with everything up here, but Marin County is beautiful. Anyone from there here?” he asked the crowd, sparking a few cheers and laughs. “That s— gorgeous. … White people there are nice, too!”

The show’s finale was intense with mosh pits kicking off during “Who Dat Boy” and an “Igor” trifecta of “I Think,” “Earfquake” and “New Magic Wand,” whose sample of comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s line,“Sometimes you gotta close a door to open a window,” seems to sum up Tyler’s creative impetus. “Runitup,” off his latest album, closed the concert on a triumphant note, with Tyler flipping through the receipts of success.

What’s next? The only predictable thing about Tyler, the Creator is that he’s unpredictable. Visionaries can’t tell you where they’re going, only where they’ve been.

Tyler, the Creator: Featuring Kali Uchis, Vince Staples and Teezo Touchdown. 7 p.m. Saturday, April 2. Tickets start at $160. Golden 1 Center, 500 David J. Stern Walk, Sacramento. www.golden1center.com