Actually, interrupted isn’t totally accurate. He was at the Flex show, an audience of one.įlex isn’t an interviewer so much as announcer - he occasionally asked Tyler a question, but mostly he provided prompts, then interrupted him. But Tyler, 28, wasn’t cowed he was amused, thrilled, giddy, as if inserted into a virtual-reality simulator. To Flex, Tyler is at best a curiosity.Īt the beginning of the talk, Flex, 50, believed he was in charge. To Tyler, Flex isn’t a gatekeeper - Flex admitted he hasn’t really listened to Tyler’s music Tyler very clearly didn’t care - but rather an avatar of an older approach to hip-hop that has little meaning for him. Going into the conversation, both expected friction. Flex is a nightclub-rap centrist and a booster of classic boom-bap Tyler turned bad behavior and an outré-rap cult following into a mini-empire that nevertheless still feels like a fringe movement.
Tyler has been a mischievous disrupter of hip-hop norms for a decade, an aesthete and a goof. Flex is the paterfamilias of New York rap radio, a fixture on Hot 97 for more than 25 years, and, when he chooses, a theatrical antagonist. But Flex/Tyler was something different: two tornadoes swirling side-by-side for 90 minutes.īoth men are virtuosos of top-volume self-presentation.
In most conversations, there is a person who sets the pace, who serves as the center of gravity.
