Before was an A-list rap star with his own festival and a $13 million house, Tyler The Creator was just a blog-era upstart who generated a buzz by word of mouth and being a menace toward many of those blogs for not posting his music. Even without the blog love, Tyler’s rambunctious self-promo was enough to garner the attention of some big names, including Jay-Z and Diddy — although, in typical Tyler The Creator fashion, he blew them off to do his own thing.
In the latest episode of DJ Drama’s Gangsta Grillz Podcast Tyler recounts how he turned down a deal from Jay-Z over tacos. According to @nfr_podcast on Twitter, Tyler tells Drama, “[He] invited us to one of his LA homes & we just ate tacos… We ate some tacos & he wanted to sign us. I was like ‘man you’re cool, but no.’ Him, Puff… a lot of people were interested… I don’t know, I just want creative control & do everything.”
Tyler, The Creator recalls JAY-Z trying to sign him early on:
“ [He] invited us to one of his LA homes & we just ate tacos… We ate some tacos & he wanted to sign us. I was like ‘man you’re cool, but no.’ Him, Puff… a lot of people were interested… I don’t know, I just want… pic.twitter.com/E2r8H6mNro
— NFR Podcast (@nfr_podcast) July 24, 2023
And despite making an album he describes as “f*cking terrible” with that creative control, it paid off eventually. Tyler and DJ Drama’s album Call Me If You Get Lost won the award for Best Rap Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards, and Tyler certainly seems to be doing pretty well for himself otherwise. I guess we know the right answer to that meme about dinner with Jay-Z now.
You can listen to the full episode of Gangsta Grillz Podcast (with an Amazon Prime membership) here.
