On Oct. 14, artist D’Angelo passed away at the age of 51. Fans across the internet began posting tributes, sharing his music and remembering what he meant to them and the R&B industry. Tyler, the Creator, one of this generation’s most influential artists, posted a heartfelt message memorializing D’angelo and how much his music inspired him to his Instagram.
But instead of shared reverence, his comment section filled up with confusion, disrespect, and flat-out racism. It was a strange sight to see—the willful ignorance of the fanbase to a respected figure like D’angelo. Tyler, noticing, eventually turned off his comments, quietly liking a tweet from a user @digitaldash_ calling out the disconnect.
“Tyler’s fanbase hates black music despite Tyler himself having a very deep love and appreciation for it,” the user said. “[Tyler] has Charlie Wilson, Erykah Badu, DJ Drama etc. collaborations and they still refuse to engage with black art on any meaningful level. Very cannibalistic.”
However, that action soon turned into a deep dive into his controversial past and raised an uncomfortable question: how can you be frustrated with a fanbase’s lack of culture when you were the one who created it?
Tyler’s career has always existed in that in-between space, loved by white audiences, but often misunderstood by them. Back in his early days, between his albums “Goblin” and “Wolf”, he was loud, provocative, and unapologetic about it.
In a 2014 Larry King Now interview, he said the n-word didn’t affect him, that white people could say it around him and he “wouldn’t care”. There were old tweets, edgy lyrics, and moments that looked like rebellion, but also read as self-defense. Maybe it was a trauma response, to control the joke before it could be used against him. Either way, that humor created a space where non-Black fans learned to be comfortable laughing at anti-Blackness. And when those fans grew up into adults who now fill arenas for him, it’s not surprising that they don’t always understand what they’re cheering for.
TikTok creator Sade even expressed that her reasoning for no longer listening to Tyler’s music was because it seemed that he didn’t support “the culture” (Black culture), but wanted to be “the culture”.
His audience oftentimes loves the sound, but not always the source. And it’s not just a Tyler, The Creator problem.
Artists like Doja Cat, Donald Glover, and Steve Lacy have all navigated similar contradictions. Pushing away from Blackness early in their careers to appeal to broader (non-Black) audiences, only to feel trapped when those same audiences turn on them for re-embracing their culture.
Doja spent years in anti-Black online spaces before turning around and calling her fanbase “creepy”. Steve Lacy went from being internet-famous to mainstream famous, but the shift came with fans who didn’t understand his music’s roots or his frustrations. It’s a weird double bind: these artists want to be seen as individuals, not representatives, but being Black in a white dominated space doesn’t really allow that.
“There’s this desire to be seen as individuals,” Youtuber Lani’s Lens said. “But Black people don’t get to be individuals. We’re seen as a monolith. The internalized self-hatred or distancing that can come from pressure doesn’t just affect the artist, it shapes how the entire audience learns to engage with Black art.
Two years ago, student Christina Avril Dieudonne wrote that for Black musicians in indie spaces, validation from white audiences often becomes the unspoken standard of “success”.
Writer and editor Koku Asamoah goes further, saying that Black artists who do fit white America’s idea of “seriousness” are treated like spectacle, not creators.
You can see this play out everywhere. In a viral video, rapper MIKE performed “Stop Worry”, a deeply personal song about his mother’s death, while two white teens in the front row played chess for laughs. They said they weren’t trying to be malicious, but it was still disrespectful. It serves as a reminder of how easy it is for Black grief, joy, or nuance to be turned into memes by people who don’t actually get it.
To be fair, Tyler has grown. His recent work feels more rooted in Black artistry. His visuals are monolithic Black women like his collaborators like SexxyRed and Doechii being unapologetically black. Some fans see it as pandering and others see it as an evolution. The truth? Probably somewhere in between.
At the end of the day, Tyler’s audience is still a reflection of his earlier choices of one he deliberately built during a time when being anti-establishment meant flirting with anti-blackness. He’s trying to evolve within a crowd that doesn’t necessarily want to grow with him.
So maybe that’s the real question here: can you outgrow the fanbase you created for survival? And if you do, what happens to the parts of you that builds it in the first place?
They love the sound, but not always the source. And for artists like Tyler, that may be the price of being heard at all.