About “Yonkers”

“Yonkers” is the first single off Tyler, The Creator’s debut album, Goblin and is widely considered as his breakout song.

The song’s title is named after the city of Yonkers, New York. Tyler said that the song made was as a joke to mimic New York hip-hop beats:

Dude, niggas don’t know that that beat was made as a joke. I was trying to make a shitty New York beat and we was just rapping like we was from New York like we were retarded. And then, I just had some random verses and I was just like ‘I’ll just record it to this beat, this beat is kinda cool.’ And then niggas really liked it.

Despite its controversial lyrics, the song became critically acclaimed on release. Its music video earned Tyler the Best New Artist award at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. It was also nominated for Video of the Year but lost to Katy Perry’s “Firework.”