Tyler, The Creator on Grammys pigeonholing

"'Urban' is just a politically correct way to say the 'n-word' to me." Tyler, The Creator said he had conflicting feelings about his Grammy win.

Transcript

00:00In recent days, there's been a lot of news about the voting process at the Grammys.

00:04Has any of that affected the way that you're looking at winning this award today?

00:09I'm half and half on it.

00:12On one side, I'm very grateful that what I made could just be, you know,

00:17acknowledged in a world like this.

00:20But also, it sucks that whenever we, and I mean guys that look like me,

00:26do anything that's genre-bending or that's anything,

00:30they always put it in the rap or urban category,

00:34which is, and I don't like that urban word,

00:36it's just a politically correct way to say the n-word to me.

00:39So, when I hear that, I'm just like, why can't we just be in pop?

00:43You know what I mean?

00:45So, I felt like, half of me feels like the rap nomination was a backhanded compliment.

00:51Like, oh, my little cousin wants to play the game,

00:55let's give him the unplugged controller so he could shut up and feel good about it.

00:59That's what it felt like a bit.

01:01But another half of me is very grateful that the art that I made

01:04could be acknowledged on a level like this,

01:06when I don't do the radio stuff, I'm not played in Target,

01:09I'm in a whole different world than what a lot of people here listen to.

01:12So, I'm grateful and like, eh.