“LUMBERJACK” by Tyler, The Creator
Cutting right to the chase, “LUMBERJACK” is braggadocious in nature. Moreover, it is one of those types of raps where the artist at hand is bragging within the specific context of addressing his haters. In fact it is upon such a premise that the title is based, with Tyler using the word “would” as a homophone for “wood” in terms of challenging his competitors to try to keep up with his success.
And indeed, his success is notable. For instance, in the first verse, Tyler gets to boast of his personal/business relationship with none other than Drake, the hottest rapper in the game, himself. The vocalist also reveals that not only does he have a number of business entities under his name, but he also owns them in full, not needing any loans to keep them afloat. Then of course is the fact that he won a Grammy Award just last year, and to celebrate the occasion he went out and “bought another car”. So it’s like Tyler is chillin’, and he’s not afraid to let the world know it.
Meanwhile the second verse delves more into the colorful type of character he has established for himself throughout the years. But all of such is more or less intended to lead us to the idea that many people used to think he was an oddball who would never make it in music. But to the contrary, in reality he’s now “motherf***ing rich” as a result of blowing up as a professional artist.
Chorus
And the chorus, intro and outro feature even more allusions to his wealth, such as the rapper boasting that he owns a Rolls-Royce – i.e. one of the most-expensive cars on the market – and how his come up has made his mother proud. And again, he is specifically doing so in a manner in which the vocalist is daring other dudes who talk junk about him to actually come in his face with that BS. So it isn’t like Tyler is physically threatening his rivals. Rather what he is saying, most comprehensively, is that he is too rich and successful for them to f**k with.
“Call Me If You Get Lost”
This song was released as the lead single from what will be Tyler, the Creator’s sixth studio album, “Call Me If You Get Lost”. The track itself came out on 16 June 2021 via the efforts of Columbia Records, with the entire project slated to come out a little over a week later, on 25 June.
This track samples a 1994 rap song by Gravediggaz entitled 2 Cups of Blood. The Gravediggaz were a short-lived crew from the NYC area who were led by RZArector, aka Rza of Wu-Tang Clan fame. Accordingly the Rza along with his Gravediggaz’ cohorts Prince Paul, Poetic and Frukwan are credited as co-writers of Lumberjack.
Also “2 Cups of Blood” itself samples another song, an instrumental actually, entitled “Inner Crisis” (1973) by a jazz musician named Larry Willis (1942-2019). So the late Larry Willis is also acknowledged as a writer of “Lumberjack”.
And the final author, of course, would be Tyler, the Creator himself. He also served as the producer of this track and the director of its video, in the latter case under the moniker Wolf Haley.
Tyler’s team began creatively and very publicly teasing the release of this track – or more specifically the album it is featured on, about a week before Lumberjack was released.
Tyler, The Creator
As of the release of this track Tyler, the Creator is what can be considered an A artist in the world of hip-hop. He dropped his debut full-length in 2011, entitled Goblin, and since then his albums have progressively scored higher on the Billboard 200 and UK Albums Chart.
For instance, his last one prior to this, 2019’s Igor, topped the Billboard 200 and reached 4th place on the UK Albums Chart, the highest he has ever achieved on any of those lists. And it also earned Tyler his first Grammy in 2020, that being in the category of Best Rap Album.
Prior to “Lumberjack” the last single he dropped which actually charted was 2019’s “Earfquake“. Said song featured Playboi Carti and went on to be certified triple-platinum by the RIAA. And that is in fact the highest certification he has earned thus far.
But even beyond his musical success, Tyler is known for being sort of an alternative-culture/queer icon. He really has a convoluted history considering for instance at one time he was considered to be homophobic. But since then, there have also been pervasive rumors for instance of Tyler being in a romantic relationship with another male hip-hop artist, Jaden Smith.
So basically he went from being labeled homophobic to people actually believing he’s gay. And Tyler also has a very distinct fashion sense, often wearing colored wigs and the type of clothing you won’t conventionally see a rapper rockin’. In other words, he’s very free-spirited in terms of his artistic expression, and his product often has a comedic slant to it, i.e. the titular metaphor of this very song.
