It's been exactly eight years since Tyler, The Creator released Flower Boy, a nominee for Best Rap Album at the 2018 GRAMMYs, and less than a year since he released CHROMAKOPIA, his third straight No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. Now, just days after four sold-out shows in NYC — including two at Madison Square Garden and two at the Barclays Center — Tyler today dropped the ninth album of his career, DON'T TAP THE GLASS, along with a new music video for "STOP PLAYING WITH ME" featuring Clipse's Pusha T and Malice, Maverick Carter, and LeBron James.
Tyler began teasing the new album on social media five days ahead of its release. He previewed it with a $5, no-phones-allowed listening event at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, where he played the album twice in full for 300 fans. In an Instagram post following the album's release on Monday, Tyler explained the motivation behind the album, writing that some friends told him they don't dance in public because of their fear of being filmed.
"It made me wonder how much of our human spirit got killed because of the fear of being a meme, all for having a good time … This album was not made for sitting still," he wrote. "Dancing, driving, running — any type of movement is recommended to maybe understand the spirit of it. Only at full volume.”
The lean and lively 10-track album — all recorded and produced while on tour — marks the shortest full-length release of Tyler's career and the first time he's ever dropped albums in consecutive years. It's also his second shortest project overall, coming in just longer than his 2018 EP Music Inspired by Illumination & Dr. Seuss' The Grinch, which runs 10 minutes.
DON'T TAP THE GLASS, which reportedly includes samples and production credits from Pharrell, Busta Rhymes and Baby Keem, is, in Tyler's words, "a fun short upbeat urgent braggadocious album to a diary post about abortion and hair and aging and whatever else i was crying about lol," he wrote on Twitter. He added, "please just let it rock if you rock with it and if you dont then move the damn on lol."
Following the release of DON'T TAP THE GLASS,Tyler will wrap the North American leg of his current CHROMAKOPIA world tour with shows in New Jersey, Toronto, and Montreal, as well as headlining performances at Lollapalooza and Outside Lands, before heading to Australia, New Zealand and Asia through the end of September.