Tyler, The Creator Says He’s Being Treated Like a Terrorist

Tyler, The Creator's recent ban from the UK forced him to cancel scheduled festival performances and the rapper is none too pleased with the reasoning behind his disallowance from the country. According to government papers that were given to Tyler and obtained by United Kingdom outlet The Guardian, the artist's banishment was due to lyrics found in the songs VCR, Blow, Sarah, Tron Cat and French and "Your albums Bastard, in 2009, and Goblin, in 2011, are based on the premise of your adopting a mentally unstable alter ego who describes violent physical abuse, rape and murder in graphic terms which appears to glamorize this behavior."

The Guardian spoke with Tyler about the ordeal and he is understandably pissed and confused. In the interview, Tyler claims that the UK is following Australia's decision to ban him and he is worried that that more countries will follow the lead and begin to ban artists from all walks of life:

Now [the UK government] are just followers. Everyone is a follower, just following what other countries are doing. Now I’m getting treated like a terrorist. I’m bummed out because it’s like, dude, I’m not homophobic. I’ve said this since the beginning. The “hating women” thing – it’s so nuts. It’s based on things I made when I was super-young, when no one was listening [to my music]. Like, I wrote Blow when I was reading about different people in American history. One of the people happened to be [the serial killer] Ted Bundy, and I wrote a song from his point of view. 

The thing that irks me about it is that the paper saying I am denied entry to the UK clearly states that these songs were written from [the perspective of] an alter ego – which means they obviously did some research on these songs that they’re detaining me for. So the argument is right there! This song is written from an alter ego – I’m not like this! You could watch any interview and see my personality, see the guy I am. I wouldn’t hurt a fly.