Tyler, The Creator handed out iPads and inspiration at Hawthorne High School in California, stunning 371 seniors with tech items as a substitute of attending the standard celebrity-packed celebration for being named Apple music’s 2025 Artist of the Year.

The Grammy-winning rapper skipped the purple carpet and champagne to return to the identical hallways the place he as soon as skated as a young person with huge desires. On December 12, what college students thought was a daily faculty rally rapidly changed into a once-in-a-lifetime second when Tyler walked on stage.

“They wanted to throw some crazy party, dinners and all that,” he instructed the gang, in line with the LA Sentinel_._ “I was like, no, no, no. Forget the dinner. I could eat at home. What I wanted to do was come back here.”

Instead of flashing lights and business speeches, Tyler delivered Apple iPads and Apple Pencils to the complete senior class, together with a dose of actual speak about his roots and the highway to success.

Tyler mirrored on rising up in Hawthorne, a metropolis wedged between Inglewood and Manhattan Beach, however typically ignored within the dialog.

“Being from this city, man, it’s kind of a weird place,” he mentioned. “It’s not Inglewood, it’s not Manhattan Beach. It’s just its own little world. And I always told myself, one day I’m really gonna make it out of this place and make something of myself, because that was not the norm for Hawthorne High. That just was not heard of.”

Tyler’s go to got here weeks after Apple music introduced he racked up greater than 4.5 billion minutes of streaming between November 2024 and October 2025.

His album Chromakopia broke his private information for first-day and first-week streams on the platform. He additionally dropped Don’t Tap the Glass mid-tour, a shock, stripped-down rap undertaking that reached No. 1 in over 55 nations.

During the varsity occasion, college students rotated by means of hands-on stations that includes Apple’s artistic instruments, akin to GarageBand, Image Playground, and Apple Intelligence. The occasion was powered by Free Lunch, a artistic company led by Tyler’s longtime collaborator Tim Hinshaw. Crenshaw Juice stored the gang refreshed.

Tyler is about to obtain Apple music’s bodily award, a customized Apple silicon wafer encased in glass and aluminum, later this 12 months.

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