CHROMAKOPIA

With Chromakopia, Tyler, The Creator crafts an album that is as much an exploration of identity as it is a sonic masterpiece. .... Collaborators – Childish Gambino, Willow, Doechii, GloRilla, Lil Wayne, Sexyy Red, Solange, and Teezo Touchdown – each adding distinct textures and perspectives that enhance the album’s emotional complexity.

Tyler, the Creator’s story inside of those sepia-toned cardboard walls of CHROMAKOPIA bursts with color and, miraculously, shows us more of him than all of his previous albums combined.

As eccentric and wide-ranging as the sonics are — featuring everything from 808s to bleating trumpets to distorted guitars — no beat feels out of place. Maybe the artist has successfully primed his audience to expect the unexpected or maybe he’s just that good, but whatever the respective vibe of any given cut is, it’s undeniably the product of Tyler, the creator.

A Hip Hop iconoclast that flits between personas, moods and genres, Tyler captures the confusion of 21st century identity on Chromakopia as he quests to find out who he is and where he wants to be.

The colour of ‘Chromakopia’ resides in the album’s grooves, layered production and immersive penmanship. While some elements feel a bit safe, the sound design is chiseled and sharper, showcasing Tyler, the Creator’s now-mastered style in HD glory. If ‘Chromakopia’ is anything, it’s profoundly human and revealing.

With the potential to be a divisive record amongst his fandom ranks, it pulls from Tyler’s cachet of sounds and themes but often doubles down while introducing new ones ("I Killed You"). In totality, it's as free as he's ever sounded. Where before he was a cultural antagonist, now he’s a matured rapper and entrepreneur with grander visions and grander fears – everything here fits that bill.

Chromakopia is less of a cohesive statement than Tyler's fans are used to hearing; it's erratic and candid at once, a strange pressure cooker of boasts and doubts that falls out of step with its deftly sequenced and thematically tight predecessors. But these are the sounds at the precipice of change -- perhaps it's fitting that Tyler can't quite package himself as neatly this time around.

While his style here isn't too far removed from the melodic pop leanings of 2019's IGOR and the mixtape homage of 2021's CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST, he's continuing to expand his ambitions. There's theatrical Zamrock on "Noid," surprising sentimental softness on the polyamorous "Darling, I" and "Judge Judy," and a towering crescendo in the form of "Balloon" and "I Hope You Find Your Way Home," which end the album with celebratory grandeur.

In moments, it becomes too saccharine, particularly with the tooth-achingly twee track Darling. But .... When he then takes aim at rappers who fake their street credibility despite enjoying middle-class childhoods (probably a diss towards Drake), you’re reminded that there are few major label emcees still capable of such honesty.

An album that balances candour with artfulness and some unequivocally banging tunes.

Sonically, Chromakopia is well constructed and thoughtfully layered and for the most part complements the album’s storytelling.

An album that began with its author denying its existence, Chromakopia ultimately seems to manifest a state of confusion, in which everything is in flux and nothing is quite as it initially seems. It achieves that to enthralling and exhausting effect.

For all of CHROMAKOPIA’s hitting-your-thirties ego death confessionals, it’s the braggadocious, Cherry Bomb-sounding tracks that really hit.

Within the chaos, there’s beauty — the sensitivity of ‘Hey Jane’, the infectious hip-hop bite of ‘Thought I Was Dead’, the rising cacophonies of brass and percussion on ‘I Killed You’. But perhaps a less frantic approach would’ve benefited the listen overall.