Tyler, The Creator’s performance at the 2021 BET Awards surprised a lot of people and added on to the praise he’s been receiving from critics who loved his last two albums IGOR and CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST. The “LUMBERJACK” is getting a lot of publicity as of late and he’s acknowledging it.
During his set at the second weekend of the 2021 ACL Music Festival in Austin, Texas, Tyler, The Creator took a break to ask the crowd for a simple favor.
“Wait,” Tyler told the crowd. “Can you boo me real quick?”
Without any hesitation, the concertgoers gave Tyler exactly what he wanted and booed him as loud as they could. Tyler took the resounding noise with grace by smiling from ear to ear before thanking the audience for granting his wish.
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“Thank you, I needed to be humbed,” Tyler said before going into the next song.
Tyler saying he needed a serving of humble pie doesn’t come as a surprise. The 30-year-old rapper is at the top of his game at the moment, and people are finally accepting him and his music. It’s a sharp contrast from his debut in the early 2010s, where people were taken aback by his wild antics such as eating a cockroach and hanging himself in the video for “Yonkers” or inciting riots at concerts with his former collective Odd Future.
BET is even turning a new leaf by having Tyler perform at the 2021 BET Awards for the first time ever in June. The network also awarded him Album of the Year at the 2021 Hip Hop Awards while also acknowledging his career with the Cultural Influence Award. In July, Tyler spoke to Complex about BET finally recognizing him over 10 years after entering the game.
“I was so hype to perform at the BET Awards,” Tyler said. “Like, I don’t think people understand, dude. Having Durk and Lil Baby and Styles P just tell me how good the performance was meant a lot. I just never felt like my style of music would ever have been, not even appreciated, but allowed on there.”
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He continued, “And because of that, I would mock it. It was like a defense mechanism because I felt like I wasn’t accepted by that audience. But when they asked me this year, man, I was enthralled. I was so happy.”