When Tyler, the Creator called Regina King to ask her to appear in his explosive performance at the 2026 Grammy Awards, she wondered immediately about who she was replacing. “The first question I asked him was, ‘Who fell out?’” King tells Rolling Stone. She can’t be blamed for wondering. The call came on Thursday, just barely three days before music’s biggest night.
It had been six years and three album cycles since Tyler last performed at the Grammys, during which he established quite the reputation for bringing elaborate theatrics to festival and awards show stages. What he delivered was his most ambitious and career-defining yet. “What I learned from meeting Tyler in this whole process is that part of his process is doing things at the last minute,” King says. “I think that makes everything that you saw last night even more amazing.”
The musician’s set was broken up into three acts. It began with the return of Saint Chroma, the creative character through which he performs on Chromakopia. In the alter ego’s signature green military-style uniform and obstructive mask, Tyler set a crew of construction workers to work on building the next set he would deploy. Their drills can be heard whirring in the back while he performs a new version of “Thought I Was Dead” with a bundle of dynamite in hand.
As the camera cuts away from Saint Chroma’s monochromatic performance, the Don’t Tap the Glass character Big Poe comes into frame for the second act. So does King, who leads the scene from behind the counter at an autobody shop. “I fixed the glass, alright. So, you got a clear view,” she tells him. “Put on some new tires. Keep moving forward. Watch out for them potholes. And don’t ever, ever look back in that rearview mirror. They just trying to remind you where you’ve been, ignoring where you going.”
King’s surprise cameo wasn’t just about getting any available actress to deliver a mid-set monologue. There was a vital emotional depth that only she could bring to the narrative of the performance. They needed someone with “the gravitas to underpin what was being said and the message,” creative director and Silent House Studios president Alex Reardon tells Rolling Stone.
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King was cast to represent Tyler’s mother, she says, a layered match given their shared age, but also the grief King carries from the loss of her son, Ian Alexander Jr., who died by suicide in 2022. “Part of my excitement for getting the call and saying yes is because I was introduced to that whole Odd Future crew through my son, Ian,” King says. “I think Ian was maybe about 12 when he first put Odd Future on my radar. So, you can imagine the impact that whole group of kids made on him creatively, with them being only about three or four years older than him. It was a no-brainer when I first got the call. It was Ian spiritually saying, ‘Yeah, mom. You gotta do this. This is one of those ones.’”
There’s a level of detail that defines Tyler’s performance style, but also elements of humor and humility. Having watched him grow and evolve creatively for more than a decade from afar, going from chaotic teenager to “this formidable artist,” King was drawn to his playfulness. It reminded her of Ian. “It was really fun to just see his process and to see his playfulness,” she says, noting that within all of the madness of finalizing details for the performance, they were still able to set aside an hour to speak. As if the collaboration didn’t feel kismet enough, she learned during their conversation that she and Tyler graduated from the same high school. “There were all signs pointing for me, and for him, that I should have a little moment in there to help bring his vision to life.”
Tyler first began planning for the Grammy Awards in November, Reardon says. That month, the rapper scored five nominations including Album of the Year for Chromakopia and Best Alternative Music Album for Don’t Tap the Glass. Like the other performances they’ve worked on together dating back to the IGOR era in 2019, Tyler and Reardon used the emotional core as a foundation to build on. “It was more about evolving past Chromakopia in a way that is uniquely Tyler,” he says. In this case, that meant channeling Looney Tunes (hence the sticks of dynamite), using Wes Anderson-style whip pans, and having Big Poe run Saint Chroma over with his car. “The most important, impactful way of hitting that storytelling mark is if you don’t actually see it,” Reardon says of the off-screen collision that introduces the third act.
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The transition from “Thought I Was Dead” and “Sugar on My Tongue” plays off of the wisdom King brings to the scene, telling Tyler, “Oh, and one more thing: If you ever find yourself going back to them old places, you destroy them. Or, they going to destroy you. Got what I’m saying? Now, grab your keys.” While the script was fully-formed when the ask was first made, Tyler and King worked together to refine the language. “That first line of, ‘I fixed the glass, so you have a clear view,’ what he had originally wrote was, ‘I fixed the glass, you have a view,” King says. “Just one little word change, and also delivery, furthers his point. It made a finer point of what he was saying, like, ‘I’m clear about where I am right now, and that that’s not where I am — but the possibilities are endless, because I can see it all.”
King had Tyler’s past and future in mind while considering the message of the monologue: the freedom to not be bound by the past. “That’s one of the things that he and I talked about,” she says. “The fact that people even are talking about anything that Tyler did when he was 19 or 17 years old. That is actually part of your rite of passage as a human being, going from child, teenager, to adult — you’re supposed to fuck up, you’re supposed to experiment, you’re supposed to push boundaries.”
Tyler commented on the lingering and recurring discourse around his early career edgelord tendencies during “Thought I Was Dead,” rapping, “I’m a big troll, haha, I’m silly (I’m silly)/Pros and cons, ignore, respond, defend or give accountability.” King sees his career trajectory as a learning opportunity for spectators and skeptics alike. “It’s unfortunate that kids can’t just be kids without being under a microscope to be judged,” she says. “The way society is right now, it’s just fucked up. But I hope they see him as a possibility.” In the final act, set at a gas station, there’s a piece of the set that reads: “Mind and Oil Change.” “That was created by him,” King continues. “So I can’t take credit for those words. I can just say that I agree with his ideology behind them.”
After just over five minutes, Tyler closes his distinctive performance with a literal bang. Having procured the dynamite from Saint Chroma’s limp body, Big Poe lights it as he steps into the gas station. “When he staggers out, he dies,” Reardon says. “He’s got blood coming out of his nose, he’s been in a building that he has blown up, but he survived — but then he didn’t.” It’s a coincidental parallel to Marty Supreme, the film in which Tyler acts opposite Timothée Chalamet. There’s a notable scene that also involves them blowing up a gas station. His character makes a clean getaway in the film, but on stage he’s left to stumble out of a smoking building and collapse on the floor where all of his peers are seated. He was still laying there for a moment even after the cameras cut away.
“The role in Marty Supreme is kind of Tyler being Tyler, and we enjoy Tyler,” King says. “As far as acting goes, you know, we’ll see if that’s something that he really wants to do. I think part of the artistry of acting is losing yourself in the character. And do I think he can do that? Absolutely, but he has to want to do it.” King praises Tyler as “an impeccable creative direction, probably one of the best we’ll ever see.”
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In his account of collaborating with the artist for more than six years now, Reardon echoes the sentiment. “I don’t think Marty Supreme triggered something new in him. It maybe accelerated an organic growth,” he says. “It was just a wonderful dovetailing of his journey and being in a movie. Each [performance] gets more complex because he feels more comfortable in that medium. He becomes more comfortable in exploring what we’re doing in the shows as more like plays, or operas. I mean, this is musical theater.”
After the performance, Reardon adds, Tyler was at once exhausted and delighted — and ready to do it again, only bigger and better: “He doesn’t have an off button.”
