Trigger Warning: This article mentions aspects of grief

My friend Jamie really likes Tyler, the Creator.

I met Jamie in the eighth grade, when he enrolled at the same school as me. We both played violin in the orchestra.

My first impression of him was that he was an annoying, try-hard twerp. He wanted to be friends with certain people a little too much. To a bunch of 14-something-year-olds who worshipped at the altar of nonchalance, his eagerness was a complete turn-off to many—including me. Jamie also had an ego, believing his violin skills to be greater than everyone else’s when they really weren’t. For a while, everything that he did grated on me.

Like the fact that he took things way too seriously sometimes. At random points in our conversations, he would get this specific somber expression on his face whenever he was reminded of a topic he evidently had been mulling over in his own time. Even when the conversation was previously lighthearted, as soon as he felt he needed to get his (unnecessary) opinion off his chest, he would turn into Michael Jordan sitting on the bench at a career-defining game: elbows over his knees, eyes cast downward, absolutely dead serious while doing something like mansplaining my own religion to me (true story).

But other times, I liked him.

As much as Jamie’s serious nature irritated me, it did make him a thoughtful person and a good listener. He would genuinely engage with you in every conversation, responding seriously with his honest thoughts on any given topic. He thought deeply about things like race, love, class, etc., openly sharing his philosophies on life in a surprisingly vulnerable way. He wasn’t concerned with appearing apathetic and detached, like many teenage boys seemed to be. Even when you were just joking around with him, he would always take what you said seriously and respond in kind.

I liked Jamie’s music taste, especially. In high school, I think I was listening to mainly Tumblr-core bands like Arctic Monkeys and Gorillaz—real underground shit. So, I thought Tyler, the Creator, was just some SoundCloud rapper whose main service was providing blaring music for house parties (which I was definitely not getting invited to… so, I admit, maybe I was bitter). Jamie was the one who convinced me that Tyler was an artist worth listening to.

Tyler released his album Igor in 2019, when Jamie and I were sophomores in high school. I remember him talking incessantly about the album, monologues about Tyler’s brilliance with lots of “GOES SO FUCKING HARDs” and “SO GOATEDs.” 

Jamie showed me the musical talent of Tyler, the Creator, on one cold, late-winter day. I had felt the familiar itch of teenage angst, which seductively whispered into my ear, “Orchestra rehearsal is so stupid, I should ditch.” I usually didn’t listen to the voice because I was a goody-two-shoes, but that fateful day, I decided to be a bad kid. I tried convincing other people to skip out on class with me, but only Jamie was down. So, we got into his shitty car, drove to Chipotle, ate burritos, drove back to the school parking lot, and then took turns queuing songs on AUX.

I remember Jamie playing the music video to “A BOY IS A GUN*” in the car, which he found to be a stroke of artistic genius. He was basically foaming at the mouth, repeatedly saying, “Tyler is SO fucking gay” while laughing. I’m not sure why he found the music video or Tyler’s sexuality to be so amusing. He wasn’t a homophobic guy, as far as I knew. Maybe he had just never seen a mainstream male rap artist as comfortable with his sexuality as Tyler. Or, like the bulk of Tyler’s fan base, he was a white kid who liked the artist’s rebellious and goofy attitude, which was just palatable enough for the suburban mind. But I didn’t press him on the subject, and I can’t remember much about the scene beyond that. Maybe Jamie talked about the artistry of the camera angles, or the impeccable styling, or the beauty of Tyler’s fuck-ass bob. I can only make up a semi-fiction that feels right.

I hadn’t realized Tyler played with genre so much; his music strayed far beyond the confines of rap. I had no idea he directed his own music videos, filled with beautiful, vintage-inspired imagery and clothing. I had been woefully ignorant of how funny and sharp his lyrics were. All it took was one music video for Jamie to convert me to a full Tyler stan.

This is the day I became a fan of Tyler, the Creator, but it also marks the moment Jamie and I became true friends in my mind. Something beyond the circumstantial “friends” you usually make in high school, those temporary bonds you know won’t last but are good enough to hold onto for the time being. Jamie and I kept in touch after graduation, and it never felt forced or weird. Every few months, we would catch up, sharing music recommendations and talking about the trials and tribulations of college life. I learned he was just as passionate about music as I was, albeit interested in wildly different artists and genres than me. But he took my recommendations seriously nonetheless, listening to all the songs I sent him without fail and giving his honest feedback. He told me plainly if he liked my favorite artists or not, and I appreciated his response, no matter what. His comments on music revealed to me that I could trust him to always tell me the truth. 

I can’t think of Tyler, the Creator, without thinking of Jamie, and I can’t think of Jamie without thinking of Tyler, the Creator. It’s why, even though I still love Tyler now, I find it very difficult to listen to his music. Because Jamie died two years ago, and it still doesn’t compute in my brain how one of them can still exist while the other is gone.

Since Jamie died, Tyler has released three albums: Call Me If You Get Lost, Chromakopia, and Don’t Tap the Glass. Jamie always appreciated my dark sense of humor, so I know he would laugh with me when I say what’s funny about him and Tyler being synonymous in my head these days is how fucking unserious Tyler is. For his newest album, Don’t Tap the Glass, Tyler released a bunch of short clips on YouTube, not full music videos but small samples of songs on the album, no more than 30 seconds each.

The title of the album refers to the glass of our phones, those screens that are basically fused to our hands at this point. These music video snippets are definitely making fun of our short attention spans and how people cannot focus on anything longer than a TikTok anymore. A four- or five-minute music video is perhaps already too long for us to sit still and focus. Tyler is clearly mocking the state of the world, and it’s objectively funny, yet I cry every time I watch these videos. While Tyler is gyrating his hips with a pornstache in the clip titled “GLASS TAPPING: Tweakin’,” I can’t help but sob. It’s a ridiculous sight, and I know Jamie would’ve laughed at me. Which does make me feel a bit better. Like, he can still be in on the joke from the spirit realm.

I think Jamie would’ve really liked Don’t Tap the Glass. I can already imagine how he would analyze the messaging of the album, something about how he agrees that as a society, we should get off of our phones and go touch some grass. I can hear him facepalming now at the state of my daily screen time (spoiler alert: it is very bad; I am actively rotting my brain). 

But of course, the thing about memory is that it’s wildly inaccurate. Maybe the person I remember him being is an entirely made-up facsimile, just a projection of all the semi-fictions I wish to be true now that I have hindsight. I have no idea what he would actually opine about Tyler, the Creator, these days. I wish I could ask.

I miss the Jamie that I knew, as well as all the versions of him I will never get to know. I miss making fun of him. I miss his overly serious monologues on life that made me roll my eyes. I miss his stupid sneakerhead shoes that never matched the rest of his outfit. I wish I could tell him I got to study abroad in Argentina, and my Spanish is most definitely better than his now. I wish I could say I worked in a record store for seven months, and I now have the authority to tell him that Phish, in my professional opinion, fucking sucks.

“Grief” feels like a dramatic word for what I feel. Jamie wasn’t my family or even my best friend. He was a person in my social orbit, but we only talked a couple of times a year after high school. I didn’t even know his favorite color. Am I allowed to think about him this often? Am I allowed to feel so devastated?

My favorite song from Igor in high school was “NEW MAGIC WAND.” I loved the way it threatened to blow out the speakers when you played it loud enough, the gritty bass deliciously grating against my ears. Now, when I listen to the song, it feels like I can pause time during the 3-minute and 16-second runtime. Instead of thinking about how I am aging with every passing moment while Jamie is stuck forever in the past, I let the heavy beats of the song fill my mind and body instead.
Igor is my favorite Tyler album, now and forever. It’s imbued with the finite memories I have of Jamie that I don’t want to ever forget, semi-fictions and all.