Illegal Civilization’s Mikey Alfred and Illegal Civ. Cinema created a documentary that shows how Tyler, the Creator went about making his latest studio album Cherry Bomb (2015), and what “really went down” while he was recording the album. The trailer for the documentary was released back in early November of 2016, which featured Tyler conducting an orchestra and showed some appearances from artists who were featured on his album such as Kanye West, Pharrell, Kali Uchis, the Internet, and A$AP Rocky.
Illegal Civilization first gave a 10-minute preview to fans of the documentary at the 2016 Camp Flog Gnaw Festival. The documentary was also premiered in Downtown LA with two sold-out screenings, and following the screening Tyler and Mikey held a Q&A where he mentioned he has to keep things “fun” and balanced or else he’d lose his mind due to everything he juggles — from carnival to a clothing line to music.
It was later then released exclusively on DVD in January earlier this year, but the 42-minute documentary is now available for all to watch on YouTube.
In the documentary Tyler discusses working over getting sued due to sampling on a song, using “white-face” in his video for the song “Buffalo,” and how writing each song came about, among other things. We get to see the array of friends he hung out with while creating the album; from Jayden Smith to Kendall Jenner to A$AP Rocky. “Cherry Bomb the Documentary” is a creatively put together film of clips from the process of a rapper’s vision and how much work is actually put into an album, and coming from a mind like Tyler’s, it’s especially out-of-the-ordinary.
Illegal Civilization is also releasing their third promo IC3 for their clothing brand and skate video tomorrow, March 31st, 2017, which also features guest appearances from Tyler, the Creator as well as artists like Mac Miller. You can watch it on their YouTube channel as well.
