Breaking his two-year project release streak during odd-numbered years, Tyler, The Creator released “CHROMAKOPIA” on Oct. 28. Before the album’s release, Tyler dropped a teaser on Oct. 16 from the album’s first track, “St. Chroma” which featured Daniel Caesar.
With the album’s teaser, a lot of fans were hoping for a Tyler, The Creator and Frank Ocean collaboration. Fans even started to create theories, believing that the album’s release date being on Ocean’s birthday has significance. I even found myself wanting to believe that Ocean may be in the album. Even without the Ocean feature, I still found the variety of artists Tyler brought into this project to be amazing
Alongside the teaser Tyler released, he also released the single “NOID.” The single focused on parasocial relationships fans have with artists and how it affected Tyler. The music video captured the essence of the lyrics perfectly, featuring Ayo Edebiri as the “crazed fan.”
“CHROMAKOPIA” consists of 14 songs and it features Daniel Caesar, Lola Young, Santigold, Latoiya Williams, WILLOW, Teezo Touchdown, Childish Gambino, GloRilla, Sexyy Red, Lil Wayne, ScHoolboy Q and Doechii. Alongside the features, the album has narrations from Tyler’s mother, Bonita Smith that remind me of the narrations on SZA’s album “Ctrl.”
“Hey Jane” tells a story between Tyler and his love interest. The song opens with narration from Tyler’s mom, “Always, always, always wear a condom. Don’t trust–,” foreshadowing the entire song. The song follows the story of a woman Tyler had relations with finding out she’s pregnant. The lyrics focus on how Tyler and the woman come to terms with the situation. Tyler raps from his perspective in the first half of the song and in the second half, Tyler is rapping from the woman’s perspective. As Tyler comes to terms with where he’s at, he ends his point of view with the verse “Look, Jane, it’s your choice at the end of the day. Just know I support either way, no pressure.” This verse parallels the last verse of the song which is in the woman’s perspective, “T, no matter the decision or day, I just want us to be cool either way. No pressure.”
Something that stuck out to me in this album was the samples. On the song “Noid,” Tyler samples a rock Zambian band, Ngozi Family’s song, “Nizakupanga Ngozi.” The line Tyler uses translates to “When you come at my house, please be respectful. Because I don’t like talking too much. Talking too much breeds gossip.” Another song that has samples in it is “Balloon” featuring Doechii. The song samples lyrics from “I Wanna Rock” by Luke and music from “ヨ・ロ・コ・ビ” by Akiko Yano.
Songs that I can’t get out of my head are “I Killed You,” “Sticky” and “Like Him.” The song “I Killed You” resonated with me deeply. Some of the lyrics read, “Full of shame so we straighten you out without a doubt. B*tch, I killed you, you were so essential. But I guess the coils and kinks became an issue. Therefore, b*tch, I killed you.” I interpreted these lyrics as Tyler talking about the societal and personal struggles that Black people face related to their hair. This song amplifies the message of normalizing black hair and that we shouldn’t conform to society’s expectations. “Sticky” had to be one of my favorite songs from the album. The song was full of energy, the beginning building up to the core of the song. “Like Him” has become my favorite Tyler song. The song talks about Tyler’s struggles with his absent father. When listening to this song, I was thinking about another one of his songs, “Answer” from the album “Wolf.” Tyler’s song“Answer” is about the emotions that Tyler feels towards his father. While he’s so angry that his father abandoned him, he also hopes to talk to him. At the end of “Like Him,” Tyler’s mom confesses to keeping Tyler’s father from him. Admitting that his father always wanted to be a part of his life, it was her who had decided that he shouldn’t be.
The album closes with the song “I Hope You Find Your Way Home.” The title seems like an answer to his previous album, “Call Me If You Get Lost.” In the song, Tyler talks about the life-altering experiences he’s gone through. At the end of the song, we hear Tyler’s mom talk about how proud she is of her son’s accomplishments and how far he has come.
“CHROMAKOPIA” has to be one of my favorite albums of this year. The album feels so raw and real, as if I’m getting to know Tyler truly. If you liked “CHROMAKOPIA,” you’ll definitely enjoy Tyler’s other projects as well as all of the artists that were featured.
“CHROMAKOPIA:” ★★★★★
