Tyler, The Creator handed out iPads and inspiration at Hawthorne Excessive Faculty in California, stunning 371 seniors with tech presents as a substitute of attending the standard celebrity-packed celebration for being named Apple Music’s 2025 Artist of the 12 months.

The Grammy-winning rapper skipped the crimson carpet and champagne to return to the identical hallways the place he as soon as skated as a youngster with massive goals. On December 12, what college students thought was a daily faculty rally rapidly become a once-in-a-lifetime second when Tyler walked on stage.

“They wished to throw some loopy celebration, dinners and all that,” he informed the group, in response to the LA Sentinel_._ “I used to be like, no, no, no. Overlook the dinner. I may eat at house. What I wished to do was come again right here.”

As a substitute of flashing lights and trade speeches, Tyler delivered Apple iPads and Apple Pencils to your 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 Seaside, however typically ignored within the dialog.

“Being from this metropolis, man, it’s form of a bizarre place,” he stated. “It’s not Inglewood, it’s not Manhattan Seaside. It’s simply its personal little world. And I all the time informed myself, at some point I’m actually gonna make it out of this place and make one thing of myself, as a result of that was not the norm for Hawthorne Excessive. That simply 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 data for first-day and first-week streams on the platform. He additionally dropped Don’t Faucet the Glass mid-tour, a shock, stripped-down rap mission that reached No. 1 in over 55 international locations.

In the course of the faculty occasion, college students rotated by way of hands-on stations that includes Apple’s inventive instruments, equivalent to GarageBand, Picture Playground, and Apple Intelligence. The occasion was powered by Free Lunch, a inventive company led by Tyler’s longtime collaborator Tim Hinshaw. Crenshaw Juice saved the group refreshed.

Tyler is ready 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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