Call him by his new name.
Tyler, the Creator has had his stage name since he was 13, but he may soon be opting for a new moniker. In an interview with Fast Company, the Call Me If You Get Lost rapper revealed the origins of his name.
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“My stage name was from, I made a MySpace page when I was 13,” he said. “I had three of them, one was regular for friends, another one was for something else, and then the third one was just ideas. I would put drawings and photos I would take, and like, my beats, I would upload ’em on there.”
After he started gaining recognition, he decided to keep Tyler, the Creator as his stage name. “It’s really dumb, but it stuck with me so it just works,” he added.
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But his days as Tyler, the Creator could be numbered. Now 30 years old, Tyler is considering using his real name, Tyler Okonma, for upcoming projects.
“But my full name, Tyler Okonma, in all caps just looks really cool,” he said. “So you might see more of that, I don’t know, I’m getting older and I think when people get older, they start to realize shit and liking things they didn’t like. You just start changing, so I think my version of that is looking at my name and saying, ‘Oh, this is actually cool.’”
At first, he felt disconnected to his government name. “I always thought my last name was weird, but whatever,” he said. “I started fu**ing with it more around 2016, and then I started putting it on my album covers.”
His birth name has made more recent appearances, including on the cover of his 2019 album IGOR. “I really f**k with that name now. It looks really cool in all caps,” he said.
While paying tribute to Virgil Abloh, Tyler revealed that the late fashion designer inspired him to embrace his last name.
“Few years back I started using more of my African last name OKONMA because of how regal Virgil’s felt,” he wrote. “Everything he did felt like he said ‘hey over here, coast is clear’ whenever I questioned things.”
It’s been an eventful year for the Golf Wang founder, who released his Grammy-nominated album Call Me If You Get Lost in June. Earlier this month, he launched his first fragrance, French Waltz.
