The album features guest appearances from Schoolboy Q, Charlie Wilson, Kali Uchis, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Pharrell Williams and Austin Feinstein, among others.

In November 2014, Larry Fitzmaurice wrote a piece for The Fader, giving details about a follow-up to Tyler, the Creator's third studio album, Wolf (2013).

Associate editor of The Fader, Matthew Trammel, reported that the album would feature Tyler lyrically tackling many current social issues.

Trammel noted that "[Tyler] offers up heavy-handed indictments of gang culture and rapper consumerism, calling them detrimental not just to the progress of his race, but to humanity as a whole".

[1] Guests that were rumored to appear included Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Keyshia Cole, Cherry Glazerr, Willow Smith, Leon Ware, and Kali Uchis.

[3] "Run" was recorded in Tyler's living room and features harmonic vocals from Chaz Bundick who also provided guitar chords to the song "Fucking Young".

Its original title was "The Brown Stains of Blackeese Latifah Part 6-12 (The Remix) (Rough Draft) (Club Edit) (Rodney Jerkins Mix)".

[6] Matthew Ramirez of Pitchfork likened "Deathcamp" to the Stooges, Glassjaw, Trash Talk, Lil Wayne's seventh studio album Rebirth as well as N.E.R.D.

[7] In response to claims of homophobia, Tyler jokingly replaces the word "faggot" with "book" to refer to critics on the song "Buffalo".

The video for "Buffalo" features Tyler, with his entire body painted white, escaping a hanging, then being chased by an all black angry mob.

[24] Matthew Ramirez of Pitchfork said, "His greatest strength has always been world-building, using a synth-heavy blitz of candy-colored jazz chords taken straight (sometimes blatantly so) from the Pharrell handbook.

[7] Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone said, "Tyler's self-produced new one flows from the Neptunes tribute "Deathcamp" to the summery whimsy of "Find Your Wings"".

praised Tyler's work with R&B and soul music sounds on "Find Your Wings" and "Fucking Young", though their juxtaposition with moments of poorly-mixed, blown out aggression lessened their effect.

[22] Rachel Chesbrough of XXL said, "Cherry Bomb is his greatest achievement thus far, solidifying his place in the game, with or without the conspicuously absent Odd Future crew".

[21] Andrew Unterberger of Spin said, "Cherry Bomb is both impressive in its ambition and absolutely stunning in its aimlessness, weaving countless genres into multi-part suites but still coming off undercooked in its entirety".