IGOR is released

Why it matters

IGOR came out May 17, 2019, on Columbia. It is Tyler, the Creator's sixth album. Tyler produced the entire record himself. The album is, structurally, a heartbreak suite about an unresolved love triangle, told in twelve tracks across about forty minutes. IGOR is the album that confirmed Tyler's pivot away from rap and into a much more melodic, soul-and-R&B-shaped register. There is rap on the album, but it is not the album's central language; Tyler sings most of it, often through pitched-up vocal effects and harmonized backing vocals. The production borrows from late-60s and early-70s soul, plus contemporary R&B, plus a more electronic register that Tyler had not previously explored. "EARFQUAKE," "NEW MAGIC WAND," "A BOY IS A GUN." The album won the 2020 Best Rap Album Grammy, which Tyler himself in his acceptance speech called a slightly mixed-feeling win (he said he was glad to win but felt the categorization of any project a Black artist made with melody as "rap" by default was its own problem). The speech is part of the record. You should hear the album. The pivot is the point.