Tyler the Creator

Yesterday I had the luxury of bringing my kids to a Tyler the Creator concert at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. My girls looooove him and I had only realized he was in concert locally a few days before the show. I was able to score side-stage seats for a decent price which was a major plus. I mean, who cares they are side-stage? My kids are lucky I even thought of buying them! Honestly my kids do not care. They love attending any live shows and are not seat snobs.

I originally had bought 3 tickets for me and the girls. Then I invited my bff and her daughter. She bought two tix but forgot to mention it to her older daughter who happens to be a Tyler the Creator fan. So then she gave her ticket to her daughter, leaving me as the lone parent there. When her older daughter said her boyfriend would purchase the ticket from me so that I can hang with my bff at one of the restaurants/bars nearby while the concert was happening, I jumped to it. But I jumped a little too quickly.

First off, my daughters are 11 and 13. And my 11 year old is tiny. Second, Tyler the Creator is a hip hop artist. I didn’t know any of his music prior to purchasing the tickets, and what little I heard of it seemed ok, but it’s hip hop. Hip hop concerts can be nuts. Then the mom in me kicked in. And by “kicked in,” I mean I had a full mental movie montage of everything that could go wrong: crowd-surfing, mosh pits, my 11-year-old being used as a glowstick baton. Also, hip hop concerts? I’m from the era of actual chaos. So I flaked (in advance) on swapping tickets with the boyfriend, and decided to go with my kids. As the lone parent. Boy was I surprised when I got there…

I’m exaggerating a little when I say this, but Tyler the Creator is for the kids. LoL. Fans we wearing green, the color of one of his albums. They were dressed preppy. They were dressed in what looked like school uniforms. They wore cardigans. CARDIGANS! At a hip hop concert! I was in shock. This wasn’t a riot. It was a rave for private school honor roll students. I think I talked about what everyone was wearing the entire walk to our seats. And there was more shock as I looked up at everyone’s faces.

There were white kids. Black kids. Hispanic. Asian. You name the ethnicity or race and they were all there. Loads of parents were in the audience with their kids. I was in complete shock. My kids totally could’ve gone with my bffs older daughter and her boyfriend (both college grads, so adults). His entire performance was loud. It was obnoxious. People were dancing all over. But they were like in party mode, not riot mode. They were happy, happy fans.

Let’s pause for a moment of background:

I grew up on Wu Tang, Biggie, DMX, Juelz Santana. I've seen people get bodied at concerts. Like, I’ve personally touched rappers as they crowd surfed over me (consensually, I think?). I’ve seen artists tell the crowd to rush the stage and security just walk away like “not my paycheck.” The concerts I went to were not PG. Honestly, they weren’t even rated. They were unsupervised chaos with a bass line. I wouldn’t have let me go to these concerts if I was my mom (my mom had no clue). But as my kids would say “He is not them.” Bc Tyler the Creator is not.

So, if you’re thinking about letting your kids got to a Tyler the Creator concert. Let ‘em. If they want to go alone, depending on age, I don’t think you have much to worry about. The concert venue we attended is right outside of NYC so for the most part this was a local NYC crowd. And it was still great.

Oh, but merch pricing was not. Ridiculously through the roof. I do not recommend unless $55 for a t-shirt or $100 for a hoodie is in your ballpark..

Let me know what you think about Tyler the Creator and any concert experiences you’ve had.