Throughout his 15-year career, Tyler, The Creator has proven his talent and genre versatility time and time again. Tyler Gregory Okonma was dubbed Tyler, The Creator, based on his MySpace page, where he shared his photography, art, and music.
During his career, Tyler has created a diverse range of albums, from hip-hop on his Flower Boy album to neo-soul on his IGOR album. Tyler’s newest album, CHROMAKOPIA, which he has just started his tour for, blends hip-hop, jazz, and soul. The title CHROMAKPOIA, “CHROMA” relates to colors, while “KOPIA” implies a sense of reflection, a theme that encompasses the entirety of the album, where Tyler talks about personal growth and self-reflection.
The lead-off song of the album, St. Chroma talks about the journey to find inner worth and your “inner light.” The song uses strong instrumentals which I think allow for an intoxicating feeling as the music is able to swell around you. It was teased on social media and gained a lot of attention from fans, quickly rising to popularity on TikTok, leaving Tyler, The Creator fans extremely excited for the new album, which I believed lived up to the expectations.
My favorite songs on the album include St. Chroma, Rah Tah Tah, Noid, Stick, Though I Was Dead, and Balloon, all of which many fans seem to agree with as they charted very well on Spotify post-release. Tyler uses unusual beats and tone switches to emphasize key parts of his songs. For instance in Balloon, ft. Grammy-winning artist Doechii, Tyler introduces her using a beat switch, moving from a chorus of voices to a faster beat, reminiscent of a circus or carnival game. I think this helps to emphasize the feature, allowing her to take control of the song for a moment, which she executed incredibly. She followed some of the same patterns and messages Tyler has been wrapping about, but put her twist on it.
Tyler does a similar thing with his song Sticky ft. GloRilla, Sexxy Red, and Lil Wayne. He transitions the song to the GloRilla’s part by changing the beat and introducing it with what sounds like a chant of female voices, which flows perfectly into the GloRilla’s feature. While I am not a huge GloRilla fan, I think that the transition is done perfectly, and the reason she has so many fans is shining through on this.
He does this again with Sexxy Red and her intro but shifts her feature right into Lil Wayne’s, which was creative. All four artists on the track were not people I expected to see but they all flowed together really well and created a song that is fun to sing along to as it has a little bit of something for everyone.
In the initial release of the album, Tyler didn’t put any feature tags on any of the songs, leaving fans to guess who was featured on each song solely based on their voice and lyrics. Something I think was very creative, as there was a lot of speculation online about what features, and collaborations were on the album. He made his listeners truly pay attention and think intently not only about the wording and meaning of the songs but also about the people singing them. This was emphasized by Tyler’s choice to release the album on a Monday morning when albums and songs are traditionally released on Fridays, so people can listen to them over the weekend. As Tyler stated in an interview with Nardwuar he thinks “It’s a lot of passive listening at parties, or people get the time to go to the gym, so they’re not listening.”
Tyler pushed his audience to truly pay attention and get the message of what he was saying about showing his ideas of growing up and realizing that his mom’s advice makes sense. To follow up with that, his mother’s voice is in every song, telling a short story, giving life advice, and apologizing for certain things. The album feels so much more personal, allowing the listener to understand Tyler and what goes on in his mind and some of his life story.
Tyler’s changes and artistic choices add to the art of the album, pushing the limit of normal creativity. This album isn’t like many of his most popular songs, such as See You Again, which is very pop-oriented. While I can understand that the album is not the norm many people are used to, I think that just adds to the charm of it all.
As much as I love many of the songs on this album and love the meaning and the art behind it, I think that there are aspects and songs on the album that aren’t my favorite. Hey Jane and Judge Judy are alright songs in my opinion, as they don’t seem to match the tempo of the rest of the album. The other songs on the album are tied together through their beat or many of the backup singers, but these two songs just differ from the rest. Both songs are very slow-paced compared to the rest of the album, something that I think interrupts the general fluidity of the album.
