News that Tyler, The Creator had been banned from entering the UK broke last week, and while some information was provided by both Tyler and his manager at the time (he's banned for 3 to 5 years, it was over lyrics from Bastard and Goblin), there were still many questions left unanswered.
Tyler sat down with the Guardian to detail his perspective on the situation, explaining exactly what happened at customs, the relation it has to his ban from Australia and more.
Check out some excerpts from the interview below. You can read the full piece at the Guardian's website.
On his experience at customs:
Monday was one of the shittiest days I’ve ever had. I was in a detention room; I felt like a criminal. And then [a Border Force officer] showed me lyrics from songs … literally, a paper with five lines of lyrics, and four were from Bastard songs and one was from Tron Cat. I never perform those songs. Thirty minutes later, the guy comes in, he gives me a paper, and he says: “OK, they’re not letting you in the country.” The paper said I couldn’t come at all, saying that I support homophobia and acts of terrorism, and [it said] some other stuff. I’m just like, one, none of that is true, and two, I was here seven weeks ago. I rented out a movie theatre for a show. I did something really awesome, and it was no problem.
On the contradictory nature of the ban:
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.
What about the people who will make music in the next five years? Are they gonna get banned? Why don’t they ban authors? Writers who write these mystery books about people getting raped and sabotaged and murdered and brainwashed – why don’t they ban them? There are rallies of neo-Nazis in parts of England. And then you’re telling me I can’t come there because of some bullshit song, but you got motherfuckers with swastikas rallying down the street actually promoting hate?
On the decision coming after his ban from Australia:
They’re following! They’re just followers at this point – to me, at least. Personally. I don’t know. It all came out of nowhere; I was [in London] in May, dude. Two months later they’re like: “Hey, uh, yeah, we reviewed music from a long time ago out of nowhere, [and] you can’t come in.” What?