Tyler, the Creator has shared the thought process behind the release of his latest album, Don’t Tap the Glass, which didn’t come with a fancy rollout like some of his previous projects.
Sitting down with Zane Lowe to discuss how he didn’t overthink the album’s rollout, which came soon after the release of the chart-topping Chromakopia, he explained that he “didn’t have to put [the] album out.”
“I didn’t wanna be precious,” he said around the 15:20 mark in the video above. “I didn’t want to spend three years and try to be super innovative. … I made an album, I was done.”
He continued: “I was just gonna upload that muthafucka the moment it was done and continue moving on with my life because I just wanted it out. And it’s so easy to design your own handcuffs, lock yourself up, and put the key over there that just turns…into pressure, whether it’s from you or fans.”
“People end up scared and not putting albums out for 15 years because they feel like they always have to — ‘I got to make the most innovative, best stuff,'” he added. “And sometimes, man, that song is good. Just put that bitch out. ‘Cause when n***as is 80 years old, you really think [you] about to sit here [with] all this great music on a hard drive, be like, ‘Oh fuck, it wasn’t…’ Fuck it, put it out.”
Despite the opinions shared during his chat with Lowe, Tyler then said that his current thought process is “probably super hypocritical” to something he might have said two weeks ago.
“But the beauty in it is like my idea on that might change tomorrow,” he said. “I might work on something new be like, ‘Oh, I gotta spend five years on this album and this bridge and get these strings right.’ But where I’m at now, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I just wanna make stuff and put it out like when I was 17,’ ‘cause that shit was just fun and free.”
The 34-year-old dropped off his ninth studio album, Don’t Tap the Glass, last month. The LP opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, garnering 197,000 equivalent album units in the US for the week ending July 24, 2025. The project also became his fourth consecutive No. 1 album on the chart.
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