Soul Food

Tyler, The Creator | 2024 | 7/10
Genre: West Coast Hip Hop, Neo-Soul, Experimental Hip Hop

Tyler Okonma’s newest studio album “Chromakopia” is a chaotic midlife crisis album that aims to serve as a self-reflection of his career as a whole. 

Before 2017’s widely acclaimed Flower Boy, Tyler, the Creator (and the affiliated Odd Future group) found success in being known as a left-field, avant-garde rap artist that strayed from anything that could be considered traditional. With his grating sounds and lyrics that covered more “touchy” matters, Tyler onced seemed complacent with being known as an edgy, horrorcore artist that teens loved and parents tended to abhor. 
However, from the release of Flower Boy onwards, Tyler went through a serious image change, growing from his original claim to fame as a chaotic genius to one with deeper ideas and a better sense of production and lyrics overall. With his series of albums often acclaimed as “one of the best three album runs in modern Hip Hop”, it is generally agreed that he has now reached a level only a few artists can truly compete with. 

Tyler, the Creator’s albums often tend to have a certain persona attached to them, a reflection of the general themes of the album through the medium of a recognisable character. Tyler Baudelaire in Call me if you get lost embodies a sophisticated, worldly character who navigates themes of luxury, romance, and Okonma’s own self-reflection. Igor is the embodiment of a hopeless romantic dealing with the raw, unfettered feelings of a one-sided, unreciprocated love. Likewise, Chromakopia has its own marching, mask-donning figure known as St. Chroma. However, something is a bit different this time. In the 2023 music video for Sorry not sorry, Tyler’s final B-side song in the deluxe release of Call me if you get lost, a shirtless Tyler, the Creator murders all of his past personas one by one – Dragging away Wolf, pouncing on Cherry Bomb and ripping of Sir Baudelaire’s ushanka for the grand finale. 

Likewise in Chromakopia, we see that this is one of, if not the most personal album by Tyler, The Creator to date. Throughout the whole album, Tyler makes it clear that this isn’t anything like a lecture or an objective meta-commentary on his own thoughts and feelings. He is still struggling to find himself and his stance in relation to the various subjects discussed in the album, and he’s not trying to hide it. Putting all this together is where Tyler’s growth in maturity as an artist really comes into play. 
As just said, Chromakopia is an album jam-packed with various ideas, not just in terms of themes, but musically as well. Rah Tah Tah, and Thought I Was Dead are some of his most jarring creations since Cherry Bomb,  but Judge Judy and Darling, I are clearly reminiscent of his more composed sounds from Flower Boy, and Call me if you get lost respectively. Any lesser artist would’ve had trouble in finding a cohesive route for all these different influenes to come together, and yet Tyler manages to do so, creating seamless transitions between tracks like Rah Tah Tah and Noid.
All this is not to say that I have absolutely no qualms with the album whatsoever. There are occasions in the album where I find that Tyler’s desire to pursue a certain message in his work outpaces the pure essence of the musicality itself. And while the production of songs reminiscent of his earlier albums draws upon some fond memories for existing fans, it also somewhat strips the album of its individuality. I would also like to say that I will not be playing Judge Judy during any family car trips in the future. 

Whilst this album is not his best work, this is only because the rest of his discography has upped the standards of what we know today as a Tyler, the Creator album.  For any other artist, it would be a hallmark piece worthy of such a title. Chromakopia is a braggadocious, powerful album that is heavy hitting at times but still contains tracks that knows how to rile a crowd up. It’s vulnerable, sincere, and direct, and clearly his own attempt at an unmasking of himself through a cornucopia of various sounds.