Tyler, The Creator’s CHROMAKOPIA | A Review
Reviewing Tyler, The Creator’s expansive and revelatory 7th studio album
Stream: Chromakopia: Apple Music | Spotify
3 years removed from his last full length album: Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler, The Creator returns with CHROMAKOPIA. Following a very fast album rollout that saw the release date and tour dates dropped all within the last week, Tyler has wasted no time in giving his fans what they want. A standard process for the rapper over the last few years and one that his contemporaries should consider taking (*cough, cough, A$AP Rocky).
Tyler, The Creator pushes his creative boundaries a bit further with his most inventive production to date, all the while dropping some revelatory bombshells and enhancing his penmanship as a storyteller by showcasing a range of maturity throughout. The end result is an expansive album that lives up to the quality of music Tyler has gifted us over the years, despite a few bumps here and there.
CHROMAKOPIA houses possibly the oddest sounding set of beats Tyler’s produced. We get a fair share of rap bangers in the forms of “Rah Tah Tah” and “Sticky” for example yet they play out very differently to what you’d expect thanks to their own intricacies that feel uniquely “Tyler”. Whether it’s the pitched up vocals on the former song or the samples of children chanting on the latter, it’s a solid way to shake things up.
Poppier cuts like “Darling, I” build off of the melodies that Tyler perfected on something like Igor with the song’s incredibly catchy production. Meanwhile the slower, R&B nuances of songs like “Tomorrow” see Tyler revel in a hushed tone. Emphasized by the soft guitar strums that makes the track feel intimate. A new sensation that I’ve never heard or felt on a Tyler album before.
However there are points on the album where the production just doesn’t hit that well for me. The rock influence on “Noid” sounded quite strange and like I mentioned on my review of the track last week, the song becomes derivative as it plays it safe towards the end. Other mentions include “I Killed You” whose use of tribal drums and horns make for an uninteresting sound, even the video gamey synths of “Balloon” are just very generic and hollow.
Thankfully Tyler makes up for these faults with his performance on CHROMAKOPIA. I don’t think he’s sounded better before and it shows. His flows are seamless and he plays around a bit with it, like channeling a hyphy West Coast tinge on “Thought I Was Dead”. One of the highlights though is Tyler’s singing, which he does a lot of on CHROMAKOPIA. His vocals have improved a lot over the years and he’s able to convey a secular and muted emotion throughout, as heard on “Like Him”.
The performances extend to the handful of guest vocals on CHROMAKOPIA as well. Daniel Casear and Teezo Touchdown provide background vocals on the opener “St. Chroma” and “Darling I,” respectively while Childish Gambino harmonizes on the outro of “I Killed You”. Rappers Glorilla, Sexyy Red and longtime collaborator/inspiration Lil Wayne shine on “Sticky”, their 3-verse run being a major highpoint for CHROMAKOPIA. Other standouts include TDE’s own ScHoolboy Q’s witty verse on “Thought I Was Dead” and Doechii on “Balloon” whose delivery makes up for the song’s lackluster production.
Lyrically CHROMAKOPIA sees Tyler bear his vulnerabilities, Throughout the album his mother Bonita Smith chimes in to tell Tyler to be his true self, or as she puts it on “St. Chroma”: (“Don’t you ever in your motherfucking life dim your light for nobody”). He takes his mother’s words to heart as Tyler presents a very honest version of himself unlike ever before.
Tyler’s incredibly proud of himself and isn’t afraid to remind listeners of his success on “Rah Tah Tah” by making bold claims such as (“It’s really Odd Future, all them other niggas whacked out. The biggest out the city after Kenny, that’s a fact now.”). He keeps the same energy on “Sticky” and throughout “Thought I Was Dead”, the latter of which could be a reference to the fact Tyler didn’t keep his “an album every 2 years promise”.
When CHROMAKOPIA decides to get introspective is when the album reaches its highpoint. On “Hey Jane”, Tyler reveals his thoughts after finding out his significant other is pregnant with his child. The song does an excellent job at detailing both his and his S.O.’s points of view. On the tender “Tomorrow”, Tyler voices his anxieties of growing old (“My mother’s hands don’t look the same, these jet black strands are turning gray”).
Keeping with the mask motif as seen on the album cover, Tyler encourages those to be as authentic as him on “Take Your Mask Off”. Criticizing middle-class kids that want to act ghetto, priests who spread religious hypocrisy and mothers who feel they’ve lost their vigour since starting a family. From a songwriting perspective alone, “Take Your Mask Off” offers some of Tyler’s best bars on the album, and is easily a standout track.
Towards the album’s end, we’re hit with a huge bombshell in the form of “Like Him”, where Tyler discusses the topic of his absent father. Expressing the way his mother would tell him he looks just like his father, yet Tyler feels as if he’s chasing something that isn’t there (“Mama, I’m chasing a ghost, I don’t know who he is.”). On the song’s outro, Bonita admits to Tyler that his father’s absence was in part, her fault, and encourages Tyler to not hold a grudge towards him.
Closing off with “I Hope You Find Your Way Home”, Tyler ends CHROMAKOPIA by revisiting topics discussed previously like fatherhood, but also reveling in his strides like referencing his collection with Louis Vuitton. The song ends with a sincere voice message from his mother, praising him for his successes.
Among all this, there were some moments that didn’t sit well with me. Namely tracks such as “Judge Judy”, where Tyler awkwardly talks about fetishes and sex, and “Noid” whose rambling of paranoia just didn’t seem as fully realized as it could have been. Especially considering how irate Tyler gets about the topic in recent interviews.
Overall though, I was pleased with CHROMAKOPIA. It’s hard to compare this to Tyler’s past releases, or anything else for that matter, but that’s the joy of a new Tyler, The Creator album. Each project is it’s own thing, like a moment in time. The production on here is quite varied and expansive, Tyler really pushes his limits as a composer this time around. Lyrically his pen game is on point whether it’s being brash or introspective. His and the guest performances do a great job on CHROMAKOPIA, Tyler in particular has gotten much better with his singing on here. Although there are some duds with the production choices and the songwriting, CHROMAKOPIA is a solid album through and through.
I’m giving Tyler, The Creator’s CHROMAKOPIA a fair 7/10. Like I said earlier, it builds off of the standard of quality Tyler’s been giving us since 2017, and caps off his 4 album run starting with Flower Boy in a very sincere and honest way. Where Tyler goes next nobody knows, but one thing’s certain: Tyler will keep being his true self no matter what.
Final Rating: 7/10
Favourite Tracks: Rah Tah Tah, Darling, I, Hey Jane, Sticky, Take Your Mask Off, Tomorrow, Thought I Was Dead, Like Him, I Hope You Find Your Way Home.
