Tyler, The Creator has a growing catalog to pull from when it comes to his live performances, but there’s one album he refuses to bring to life on stage.
During a social media break on his Chromakopia World Tour on Monday (March 24), Tyler made it clear that he has no interest in performing material from Cherry Bomb, despite pressure from some fans.
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In response to a user on X (formerly Twitter) who took responsibility for starting a Cherry Bomb chant at one of his recent shows and urged Tyler to perform the track “Deathcamp,” the Odd Future founder replied: “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 of said chanting at his concert, Tyler doubled down on his stance and resisted pressure to play songs from his 2015 album, which is a polarizing entry in his catalog.
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“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 fans.
Despite the difference in opinion over Cherry Bomb, Tyler added on X that his Chromakopia Tour “has been wonderful so far” and thanked fans for attending.
Tyler, The Creator’s refusal to perform Cherry Bomb sits in stark contrast to his previous praise of the album.
In a 2017 interview with the fashion magazine Fantastic Man, the multi-hyphenate called it his “favorite” project so far, ahead of even Flower Boy which became his first album to be nominated for a Grammy.
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He also admitted in an interview with Jerrod Carmichael that Cherry Bomb was “hard to get into,” despite it boasting star-studded collaborations with the likes of Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Pharrell, ScHoolboy Q and Roy Ayers.
Addressing the mixed reception to the album, Tyler said: “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 that Tyler, The Creator looks back on with mixed feelings.
He also admitted in a 2023 appearance on the Rap Radar Podcast that he thinks his debut studio album, Goblin, was “fucking terrible.”
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“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 said. “If you were there, that energy and that aura and that air just cutting through what everyone else is doing is so important.”
He added: “I still think ‘Yonkers’ is awesome. ‘She’ is awesome. The first two versions of ‘Nightmare’ is 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].”
