In this, the first major study of Tyler, the Creator, Gustavo Souza Marques analyzes this game-changing artist in all his complexity-as post-gangsta provocateur, first-gen digital native, shapeshifting iconoclast, anti-racist activist, and self-proclaimed “walking paradox.” Far from avoiding Tyler's contradictions, Souza Marques places them at the center of his masterful theorization. Moving effortlessly between musicology, media analysis, ethnography, critical race and gender theory, and postcolonial studies, Souza Marques offers rich and provocative insights into a figure that is central to understanding contemporary music and media in the Twenty-First century.

J. Griffith Rollefson, author of Critical Excess: Watch the Throne and the New Gilded Age (2021)

In Tyler, The Creator's Hip Hop Revolution, Gustavo Souza Marques helps readers understand one of the most popular and enigmatic hip hop artists of the twenty-first century. Analyzing the music videos and social media frames through which his work is disseminated, this book argues that Tyler, The Creator consistently rejects dominant forms of music industry blackness, calls attention to the way that blackness has been constructed in relation to whiteness and dramatizes the psychological costs of race. In doing so, Marques makes a valuable contribution to hip hop studies by demonstrating how ongoing tensions surrounding race and racial representation are worked out through beats, rhymes and imagery.

Loren Kajikawa, Professor of Musicology, The George Washington University, USA

Marques unpacks Tyler, the Creator's multimedia work with a sharp eye and keen ear. His analysis draws the reader's attention to the smallest details of Tyler's music while also allowing ample space for the complexity that animates the rapper's oeuvre.

Justin D. Burton, Professor of Music, Rider University, USA