Tyler, The Creator has a growing catalog of music to choose from for his live shows, but there’s one album he refuses to revisit on stage.
While on a break from his Chromakopia World Tour on March 24, Tyler made it clear that he has no desire to perform tracks from Cherry Bomb, even though some fans have been urging him to do so.
In response to a fan on X (formerly known as Twitter), who claimed responsibility for starting a Cherry Bomb chant during one of his recent concerts and requested he perform the song “Deathcamp,” the Odd Future co-founder responded, saying: “chant all you want (i hope you dont, its mad annoying during the show) im not gonna play it, chanting doesnt make me magically wanna play it.”
In a video showing the chanting at the concert, Tyler stood firm in his decision, resisting pressure to perform songs from the 2015 album, which has received mixed reactions from fans.
“I genuinely don’t know the logic of why you think that chanting that is going to sway my decision. I don’t want to play that! And most of the crowd doesn’t want me to,” he told his audience.
Despite this disagreement over Cherry Bomb, Tyler shared on X that his Chromakopia Tour “has been wonderful so far” and thanked fans for their support.
Tyler, The Creator’s refusal to perform Cherry Bomb is a sharp contrast to his earlier praise for the album.
In a 2017 interview with Fantastic Man magazine, Tyler called Cherry Bomb his “favorite” project, even ranking it higher than Flower Boy, which became his first album to earn a Grammy nomination.
However, Tyler also admitted in a conversation with Jerrod Carmichael that Cherry Bomb was “hard to get into,” despite featuring high-profile collaborations with artists like Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Pharrell, ScHoolboy Q, and Roy Ayers.
Reflecting on the album’s mixed reception, Tyler shared: “I just knew if [Flower Boy] wasn’t good I would be fucked. Some people would disagree, but I was like, ‘Man, I’m nothing right now.’ ‘Cause everyone hated it, except for, like, real music lovers who care about drums. I mean, I opened a rap album with a rock song. Most n-ggas is like, ‘Ugh!’”
Cherry Bomb isn’t the only album Tyler, The Creator has complex feelings about.
In a 2023 interview on the Rap Radar Podcast, Tyler admitted that he believes his debut album Goblin was “fucking terrible.”
“I still love it. It’s an energy and an aura that it has. And hearing my wonky synths and gross drums and me not realizing I’m yelling on every song and saying the most wild shit is what got people there,” he explained. “If you were there, that energy and that aura and that air just cutting through what everyone else is doing is so important.”
Tyler continued, “I still think ‘Yonkers’ is awesome. ‘She’ is awesome. The first two versions of ‘Nightmare’ are ill, ‘Tron Cat’ is still awesome. ‘Analog’ is still cool. There’s still a few things on there, but people don’t know a lot of songs on that album were random songs that we kinda just [threw on there].”
