Tyler, The Creator Says Artists are Afraid to Be Themselves

Tyler, The Creator has a lot on his plate. The Odd Future frontman recently released his album, Cherry Bomb, is on a 42-date tour, launched his own app and has his own internet TV channel. The rapper appeared on PBS' Tavis Smiley show and discussed his career up to this point, working with Roy Ayers, his love for the movie Pleasantville . The Creator also discussed his growth as an artist and how today's artists are afraid to be themselves when they write music.

"When I was younger, I was more creating worlds and characters and I would read about certain people and then try and get in their head and see how they would write a song," said Tyler. "Now I kinda just write about my life. I have a song called 'Hair Blows' on this new album which is about how a girl's hair blows in the car. I wrote that because I was with a female friend of mine in my car and she was hanging out the sunroof and her hair was blowing and I felt like the man and wrote a song about it.

"I think a lot of artists mess up because you don't know much about them after a certain point in time. I realized none of my music will sound the same if I write music about my life...That's why you have a bunch of songs about the same stuff on the radio because one, it's comforting to a simple listener, and two, people just aren't comfortable with themselves."

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