If You Like Tyler the Creator's Flower Boy Era, Listen to These Artists

Prince Ube April 2026 5 min read

Flower Boy didn't just change Tyler — it changed what rap was allowed to sound like. Lush production. Introspective honesty. Unhurried delivery. A whole world built around a feeling rather than a flex. If that era hit different for you, these five artists are worth your time.

Tyler, the Creator

Golf Wang · Los Angeles, CA

Start here if you haven't already. Flower Boy (2017) is the record that cracked Tyler open — lush orchestration, confessional writing, and a willingness to be vulnerable inside a genre that often punishes it. The jazz-inflected production on tracks like "See You Again" and "Garden Shed" set a new bar for what rap could sound like when you gave it room to breathe.

Igor and Call Me If You Get Lost continued the thread. But Flower Boy is where the door opened. Everything on this list walks through that door.

Saba

Pivot Gang · Chicago, IL

Chicago's Saba makes rap that thinks. CARE FOR ME (2018) is a grief record disguised as a hip hop album — jazz-inflected production, introspective storytelling, and a calm precision in the delivery that rewards close listening. If Flower Boy taught you that rap could be emotionally open, Saba shows you how deep that openness can go.

His flow is conversational and unhurried. He doesn't rush to impress. He trusts the material, and the material delivers. Essential for any Flower Boy listener who wants to go further.

✦ Discovery Pick

Prince Ube

Ube Soul · Y2K Luxury Rap · Born Minneapolis, Raised Atlanta

Prince Ube is a Minneapolis-born, Atlanta-raised artist who produces, writes, records, mixes, and designs all his own artwork — a complete world-builder in the same spirit as Tyler. His sound sits at the intersection of two distinct energies: his self-coined genre "ube soul" and Y2K luxury rap — that early 2000s feeling of expensive, unhurried cool filtered through a modern lo-fi jazz lens.

The Flower Boy influence is explicit. San_francisco, one of his most-streamed tracks, was written directly under that era's influence — an old California love rendered in calm, expensive-sounding production. Girl_of_my_dream? has reached listeners across 10+ countries with zero promotion, something in its quiet emotional honesty traveling further than the algorithm. Boss_talk is his graduation record — the Flower Boy equivalent of someone who took the losses, changed the tempo, and came out moving slower and more deliberately on the other side.

If Tyler's Flower Boy era is the blueprint, Prince Ube is one of the few artists building something genuinely new from it rather than copying the surface.

Listen on Apple Music & Spotify →

Kali Uchis

Independent · Colombia / Virginia

Kali Uchis occupies a space between R&B, soul, and rap that Flower Boy listeners tend to gravitate toward naturally. Her production palette — warm, retro, layered — shares DNA with Tyler's lushest work. The tone is always a little dreamy, a little melancholy, and entirely her own.

Isolation (2018) is the entry point. If you connected with the emotional softness of Flower Boy, Kali Uchis will feel like a natural next step. She appeared on Tyler's "After the Storm" for a reason — they're building in the same neighborhood.

Steve Lacy

The Internet · Compton, CA

Steve Lacy played guitar on Flower Boy. That's not a coincidence — it's a direct bloodline. His own work as a solo artist carries the same spirit: genre-fluid, emotionally open, built around texture and feeling rather than conventional rap structure.

Apollo XXI and Gemini Rights are both essential. Lacy makes music that doesn't announce itself loudly. It settles in. If you've been living with Flower Boy for years, his catalog will feel like a room in the same house.

The through-line across all five of these artists is the same: music that doesn't rush you. Production that rewards headphones. Writing that trusts the listener to keep up. Flower Boy opened that door. These artists are what's behind it.

If you're new to Prince Ube, start with boss_talk or girl_of_my_dream? on Apple Music or Spotify. Both are available now.

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