Tyler the Creator

Tyler The Creator has been teasing new music all week, first with a billboard in LA bearing the phone number to a cryptic message from his mom, then with a video snippet called “Side Street” that appeared to be teasing a new aesthetic for his latest rollout. Yesterday, he updated the preview phone number with more new music, but he saved the biggest surprise yet for today, releasing the “Lumberjack” video to YouTube and DSPs.

The video opens with Tyler reading car magazines in bed while eating a pastry, with a mellow track backing Tyler’s narration from what sounds like a diary entry. Then, out of nowhere, the scene, music, and overall vibe take a hard 180, as we see Tyler standing atop a tower of designer trunks rapping like a madman over a gritty, ’90s-style beat, complete with ad-libs being screamed in the background by none other than DJ Kay Slay. And just in case you’re wondering, he does explain the meaning behind the title, with a bar that should have rap connoisseurs reaching for the rewind button with a sour lemon expression on their face.

The video concludes once again with the sitcom-y outro teasing “Call Me If You Get Lost,” which suggests that this is just the first salvo from a barrage of new music Tyler has ready to go.

Watch Tyler The Creator’s “Lumberjack” video above.

Tyler The Creator has long been known for his unconventional approach to making and promoting his new music, from pretending to eat a roach in the self-produced “Yonkers” video that introduced him to the world, to adopting the Andy Warhol-esque alter ego that marked his Igor era. Now, fans are convinced he’s promoting the follow-up to Igor thanks to a massive pastel billboard in Hollywood leading to a cryptic message from Tyler and — of all people — his mom.

As you can see, the billboard exhorts passersby to “call me if you get lost” with a phone number appended. Dialing the number leads to a recording of Tyler’s mom boasting about her fighting ways. “I’d kill a mothaf*cka over this one right here, n****,” she proclaims. “I’d stand in front of a bullet, on god, over this one. My son used to record me beating *itches’ ass.” Tyler can be heard affirming these statements before she continues, “I would beat your whole family and didn’t give a f*ck. They’d be like, ‘Tyler’s mama crazy. Tyler’s mama crazy.’ Yep. F*ck with my kid. Tyler would be like, ‘Get ’em, mom.’ They’d be like, ‘No, don’t do it.’”

At the very end of the recording, some music starts to play and it’s very much in the mode of the synth-heavy style that has defined Tyler’s music since Cherry Bomb. The conjunction has fans convinced that the rollout to a new Tyler The Creator album has begun, but with Tyler, anything is possible. Check out the audio above.