On Tuesday, Tyler, the Creator appeared at San Diego Comic Con to promote The Jellies, the animated series he co-created with Odd Future's Lionel Boyce. During a Q&A session, Tyler was asked why the show's main character, Cornell Jelly, had become black (for the first season of The Jellies on the GOLF Media app, Cornell was white).
Tyler's responded with a takedown of the lack of diversity in modern American cartoons. Watch above or read below:
"Why you make him black?' Why can't niggas have anything, man?... How many fuckin' black cartoon characters is it on TV right now? Name five. I'll give you time. It is none... We don't got shit... So I said fuck that, we about to make this nigga black, and he ain't got no guns, he ain't shoot no fucking basketball, and he a fucking goober, and we gon' put him on TV. And he's the lead character, he ain't the comic relief, he ain't the sidekick, he the lead nigga."
It's not the first time Tyler has used his show to make this point: in the first trailer for the new season posted by Adult Swim, Cornell directly references the network's lack of black shows: "I'm not trying to get cancelled like every other black show on here," Cornell says as he chokes someone. "I mean, where's Boondocks? Black Dynamite? Loiter Squad?"
Tyler has another show, Nuts And Bolts, which will premiere on Viceland. He recently shared his new album Flower Boy.
