Two-time Grammy-winning artist Tyler, the Creator is back and possibly looking for his third consecutive Grammy. Only a month before his annual Camp Flog Gnaw music festival, Tyler announced his album CHROMOKOPIA out of the blue with a music video snippet titled, “St. Chroma” and released the album the following week. This came as a shock to a lot of fans, including me.
With this album, Tyler, the Creator went from controversial and edgy to raw and vulnerable. While Tyler has been no stranger to showing emotion, as shown in his older projects like Flower Boy and IGOR, CHROMAKOPIA is his most vulnerable album yet.
Throughout the album, he expresses many themes, but what stands out the most are the themes of paranoia, maturity and monogamy.
On the track “Noid,” he talks about how he can’t do anything in private, and wherever he goes, there are cameras on him. Outside of his music, Tyler has always spoken up about fans taking pictures and recording him; “Noid” showcases that very explicitly.
He also makes comments about Los Angeles culture, specifically gang culture. On the same track, he says “Nervous system is shook, way before 19. LA’ll do that to you, where you from…” As a fellow LA native, I understand the feeling of paranoia when you go to certain neighborhoods and are unsure of the kind of trouble that might find you.
Chromakopia is Tyler’s most honest album yet and this is because of how open he is about things like his inability to grow and settle down. The track “Hey Jane” is a clear example of this with him opening up about how he almost became a parent.
This is one of my personal favorites on the album because while the beat is calm and his flow is as if they were waves, the story he tells feels like the opposite. It’s almost a stormy feeling with Tyler taking the perspective of himself in one verse and “Jane” in the next verse.
It’s really hard to choose my favorite tracks, but if I had to, I would choose “Like Him,” “Sticky,” “Darling, I” and of course “Hey Jane.” Each of these tracks sends me to another dimension when they come on. What I appreciate most on this album is the commentary by Tyler’s mom, Bonita Smith, making the album feel more personal as she is talking to him on most of the tracks.
With each Tyler album, I tell myself there’s no way he can top the last one, but to my amazement, he does it every time.