Tyler, the Creator

Lore & Background

Tyler, the Creator's eighth studio album, Chromakopia, includes the single "Sticky," which was released on November 12, 2024, through Columbia Records. The song features guest verses from GloRilla, Sexyy Red, and Lil Wayne, with uncredited background vocals from Solange Knowles. It samples James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing" and Young Buck's "Get Buck." Critical reception was mixed but notable. Alexander Cole of HotNewHipHop noted that Tyler "has decided to hide his feature list, which is taking a page out of the Travis Scott playbook." Steven Loftin of The Line of Best Fit described the track as having "a swaggering proverbial dick-swinging." Consequence's Jonah Krueger called it "as fun-loving and sex-obsessed as Chromakopia gets." Jeff Ihaza of Rolling Stone dubbed it the "posse cut of the ages." However, Paul Attard of Slant Magazine felt that Tyler's "try-hard sensibilities—layering in a brass section, a slew of truncated guest features delivering barely considered four-bar verses, and an extended outro—overwhelm any sense of excitement." Pitchfork's Heven Haile wrote that "Black women rappers seem to remind Tyler there's more to making music at 33 than uber-serious lyrics" and that the beat "sounds like he hired a live step team to record background vocals." Sam Moore of HipHopDX commented that "the only time Tyler actually sounds happy is when he hooks up with GloRilla, Sexyy Red and Lil Wayne on 'Sticky.'" Dork's Jake Hawkes described the song as "the kind of glorious, multi-layered mess we haven't heard since his Odd Future days." An alternative version exists on the Test Pressing Version 1 vinyl and CD test pressing of Chromakopia, where GloRilla's verse is absent and replaced by another verse from Tyler.

In Their Own Story

The studio lights hummed at 2 a.m. in a converted warehouse off Crenshaw. Tyler sat cross-legged on a leather couch, a half-empty glass of something amber sweating on the armrest, watching a young producer from Houston lay down a beat on a battered MPC. The beat was raw, trap-hat sharp, but the melody underneath had this strange, almost orchestral ache to it. Tyler listened, said nothing, and when the loop ended he just nodded once. The kid—Travis—smiled like he'd been waiting for that single nod for the whole session. Outside, the LA rain tapped against the skylight, and somewhere a bass line from a different room bled through the drywall. Two artists, two cities, one shared conviction that the record could be bigger than the genre. Tyler took a sip, set the glass down, and said, "Run it back. Make it sadder." And Travis did.

Reader's Guide

Tyler, the Creator is not a recurring feature on Travis Scott's tracks in the way a guest vocalist might be. His role in Travis's world is closer to that of a creative peer and cultural architect. Travis, building his own empire from Houston, operates within that same expanded definition of what a rap artist can be. Their most notable intersection is the shared LA–Houston creative circuit of the 2010s, where both artists moved in overlapping circles of producers, designers, and visual artists. Tyler's willingness to blend rock guitars, string arrangements, and R&B vocal runs into a hip-hop record created a cultural precedent that Travis would later exploit on a grander scale. Tyler's signature contribution to the broader aesthetic is his insistence on vulnerability as a form of strength. In a genre that often rewards invulnerability, Tyler's decision to write about heartbreak, self-doubt, and queer identity in the open gave permission for a more emotionally complex hip-hop. Travis's own lyrical content—his explorations of fame, loneliness, and self-destruction—exists in a world Tyler helped make possible. The collaboration is less a handshake on a track listing and more a shared language, a mutual understanding that the record is a canvas, not a cage.

Did You Know?

• Tyler, the Creator's song 'Sticky' samples James Brown's 'Get Up Offa That Thing' and Young Buck's 'Get Buck.'
• The song features uncredited background vocals by Solange Knowles.
• On the Test Pressing Version 1 vinyl and CD test pressing of Chromakopia, GloRilla's verse on 'Sticky' is replaced by another verse from Tyler.
• Alexander Cole of HotNewHipHop noted that Tyler 'has decided to hide his feature list, which is taking a page out of the Travis Scott playbook.'
• Pitchfork's Heven Haile wrote that the beat for 'Sticky' 'sounds like he hired a live step team to record background vocals.'