Tyler, the Creator blasted reports that he is considering abandoning his longstanding stage moniker in favor of his real name.
The rapper, real name Tyler Okonma, adopted his Tyler, the Creator stage persona from a Myspace page he created aged just 13 for his artwork and music.
However, recent videos have been released with his real name in the credits, and in an interview with Fast Company, he confirmed he is thinking of a name change.
“I started using that one more, and random people from Kentucky would be, like, ‘Cool beats, bro!’ And so I just kept the Tyler, the Creator thing going and, you know, I’m 17 in high school, around LA, the name’s getting around, and I kind of just kept it as my stage name,” he explained. “It’s really dumb but it stuck with me so it just works.”
In a pair of since-deleted tweets, Tyler called the reports “dumb” and said he was not planning to change the name that made him famous.
“I NEVER SAID I WAS CHANGING MY NAME, ARE YOU STUPID? YES… WILL EMBRACE MY LAST NAME MORE, LESS WOLF HALEY,” Tyler the Creator tweeted. “NEVER SAID I WAS GONNA CHANGE MY STAGE NAME, WHAT YO EARS ON, BRO?”
During the interview, Tyler said he’s a more mature artist. The rapper said he was just planning to embrace his full name.
“My full name, Tyler Okonma, in all caps just looks really cool. So you might see more of that, I don’t know, I’m getting older and I think when people get older they start to realize s###, you just start changing.”
According to Tyler, the comments were taken out of context.
“INTERVIEWER ASKED ABOUT MY STAGE NAME, I EXPLAINED HOW I GOT IT, I JOKED ABOUT IT BEING DUMB BUT KEPT IT,” Tyler explained in another tweet. “TALKED ABOUT MY AFRICAN LAST NAME HOW I WANT TO EMBRACE IT NOW THAT IM OLDER AND HAVE A NEW VIEW ON IT. SITES SAYS IM CHANGING IT. FALSE.”
Last month, in a post memorializing the late designer Virgil Abloh, Tyler revealed how the fashion legend had inspired him to use “more of my African last name.”