Tyler, the Creator is currently on the road with CHROMAKOPIA: THE WORLD TOUR, a global run celebrating last October’s release of CHROMAKOPIA. Kicking off in February, the tour has taken him across the United States and Europe, and will wrap this September in Asia, with a stop in Korea. He performed at the Barclays Center in New York on Friday, July 18. A transparent display case outside the venue showcased a muscular figurine of the artist. As with any such installation, it came with a familiar warning: “Don’t Tap the Glass.” The artist also shouted out the phrase, mid-concert, to announce his next project. And after the weekend, on Monday, July 21—just nine months after CHROMAKOPIA—he dropped his ninth album, DON’T TAP THE GLASS.

Tyler, the Creator made a point of getting the intent of his new album across as clearly as possible around the time of its release. Take one example. He unveiled the official website for the new album on Saturday, July 19, the day after his Barclays Center show. The page displayed three colored boxes, each bearing a cryptic message alongside pre-order buttons for the album and merchandise. First: Body movement. No sitting still. Second: Only speak in glory. Leave your baggage at home.
 And again, third: Don’t tap the glass. 

And on Sunday, July 20, a listening party was held at the historic Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever in Los Angeles, with 300 guests present. The poster for the event carried a simple warning: “Don’t come if you aren’t going to dance.” After the party, Tyler, the Creator took to his social media account to post a lengthy message. He lamented how, these days, people “don’t dance in public ... because of the fear of being filmed,” and that “a natural form of expression and a certain connection they have with music is now a ghost.” According to Tyler, the use of phones and recording was banned at the listening party, and everyone there danced, moved, expressed themselves, and sweated over the course of two full playbacks of DON’T TAP THE GLASS. His message ended with a set of instructions: “This album was not made for sitting still. Dancing, driving, running any type of movement is recommended to maybe understand the spirit of it. Only at full volume. Don’t tap the glass.”

This is reminiscent of the layered meaning behind the album’s title. DON’T TAP THE GLASS is a familiar warning found at the zoo, meant to protect the animals from being agitated by visitors. The metaphor has already been used on CHROMAKOPI, in “Thought I Was Dead” (“I’ve been trapped in a zoo”). This time, however, the meaning of the glass is expanded to encompass the social ill of the digital age - another wall that incites what Tyler calls “the fear of being a meme.” In this context, the “glass” is nothing other than the omnipresent smartphone screen: the surface we tap and swipe, and the barrier that stands between us and true human experience and joy. The title of the album, the slogan on the website, the listening party, the social media message, even the lyrics to “Big Poe (feat. Sk8brd)” - all circle back to the same refrain.

It’s hardly surprising that his concerns and demands resonate with so many. We all know too well how we shrink under the specter of constant, potential surveillance. Moments that were once important and meaningful in their own right are now stripped of context, turned into fleeting entertainment for anonymous crowds, subject to their judgment, or worse, ridicule. We’ve built a self-consciousness paralyzed, detached, from genuine self-expression. That is why Tyler, the Creator insists: “Only speak in glory.” Of course, he is an artist, and his proclamations serve as commentary on the record rather than its main content. Which raises the question: what about the music in DON’T TAP THE GLASS?

With ten tracks running only 28 minutes, this is the leanest album in Tyler, the Creator’s discography. At first glance, the record would be taken as half-hearted or less significant - made up of familiar musical components and a short runtime. It could be taken a step further: that what might once have been scraps for a deluxe edition have simply been repackaged under a new name. To be sure, much of the album can be read within the context of Tyler’s own creative history. The traces of funk, R&B, and neo-soul recall the eras of IGOR and Flower Boy. At the same time, the experimental and confrontational edge of Cherry Bomb is summoned here.

But the structure of DON’T TAP THE GLASS is not the product of neglect; it is the result of a deliberate choice, made to serve a specific purpose and function. In other words, Tyler, the Creator has created a record that is short, buoyant, and instinctive, designed for immediate physical activity, most obviously dancing, but by no means limited to it. DON’T TAP THE GLASS compresses elements of classic dance music like 1990s hip-hop and G-funk, disco and R&B grooves, house and techno, into a thirty-minute burst of explosive energy. This album casts aside analysis and reflection on social issues (as the lyrics in “Big Poe” puts it: “None of that deep s**t”) and exists instead to get your body moving before you start to worry about how you might look.

This is why DON’T TAP THE GLASS stands as Tyler, the Creator’s most novel work to date. He has explored his inner world through concept albums featuring alter egos and fictional characters throughout his career. His early works - often referred to as the “Wolf Trilogy” - were staged as therapy sessions with Dr. TC. The twist - that it was an imaginary dialogue with himself all along - functioned as a narrative frame, that lent distance and a kind of legitimacy to the shocking imagery and violence characteristic of the horrorcore genre he debuted with. In 2019, IGOR was inspired by “the mad scientist’s loyal assistant” archetype derived from Dr. Frankenstein’s aide, to explore the condition of being a side character in someone else’s story—through unrequited love and failed relationships. And in his latest work, CHROMAKOPIA, he appeared in an actual mask, continuing to use his albums as tools to objectify and convey his own stories—from the absence of a father, mental health and loneliness, and gender identity to breakups.

DON’T TAP THE GLASS does not grapple with the artist’s inner turmoil, but with collective cultural phenomena. After a decade spent dismantling the prison he was caught in, Tyler, the Creator came to recognize another one: an invisible cage that trapped everyone. It is only natural, then, that he would lean on the musical tools he has mastered over that same span of time. However, profound lyrics and concepts step back, making way for instinct and sweat. Genre conventions are not used for satire or paradoxical imagery, but to coax out the rhythm already embedded in people’s instincts. That is why this album contains none of the complexities that once defined his past work: not the parody of New York hip-hop beats in “Yonkers,” not the contrasts between anxious emotions and warm arrangements from the Cherry Bomb era, not the layering of sad narratives over joyful production in IGOR to heighten the pain. What you hear, and how you respond to it, is 100 percent real.

Some works of art prove themselves through their function. Tyler, the Creator isn’t merely shouting at people to dance - he is handing them a red pill designed precisely for that purpose. And it seems the public has largely agreed with his diagnosis and prescription. DON’T TAP THE GLASS debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with a formidable 197K units despite being released on a Monday, therefore skipping over the three most crucial weekend days in the chart-tracking cycle. An astonishing 128K units came from physical albums sold exclusively through his official website, which is almost unheard of for a hip-hop release.

Given the album’s stated purpose of encouraging bodily movement, the result is intriguing. In an age dominated by streaming, the act of purchasing a physical album becomes another form of active movement in itself. It demands more than just a few taps on a screen. To own the record, admire its jacket, and play it through is to take part in a physical experience that is opposite to the immediacy of the digital. It belongs to the world beyond the “glass” that Tyler, the Creator has criticized. By buying the album, fans did more than listen—they supported and participated in his proposition. And so, even the age-old repeated cycle of new music being released, listened to, and bought, is given a completely novel context.