When I first opened my phone on TikTok about a week before this album came out, all I saw was edits about “Chromakopia” and theories about the album. Naturally I was shocked, because Tyler is one of my favorite artists, and you better believe I was streaming “Chromakopia” once it came out. When I listened to it, at first, I didn’t understand what the hype was about. But after re-listening, I realized why it is so important to help with understanding Tyler as a person.
After 3 years of waiting, Tyler, The Creator has finally returned and broken hip hop chart records after last dropping “Call Me If You Get Lost” in 2021. This year on Oct. 28, Tyler released what I consider to be his most intriguing album . Only one day after the album was dropped, “Chromakopia” earned over 85 million streams on the Spotify global chart.
While Tyler is known to be a creative hip hop artist in the sense that his songs often have a deeper meaning to them, I think this album was even more profound than others. Tyler has rapped about familial expectations before, but it was never put into depth as much as it has been on “Chromakopia.”
Voice messages from his mother are at the beginning or end of the songs on the album, and majority of the songs tie back to Tyler’s childhood, or issues he thinks about when he’s alone. If you listen to what his mother has to say, many of the times she is giving him a lesson on how he should be himself and never be afraid to do so.
“Take Your Mask Off” is a perfect example of this, and it is also my favorite song on the album. I love this song because it literally symbolizes Tyler taking his mask off. As seen in the cover of the album, Tyler is wearing a mask. I interpreted this as him using the mask as a shield to hide himself from everything he was afraid to say as a public figure but bravely did so.
“Take Your Mask Off” speaks about a major idea the album is meant to represent; finding himself. While trying to express this, Tyler talks about trying to be someone you’re not which I personally connect with. “Keep that s*** one hundred with you, with yourself/ You don’t have to put on no costume” says his mother in a voice memo during the song.
Now that I’ve talked about one of the songs I love, I’m going to talk about one I absolutely despise. “Noid.” This single dropped before the album as a sort of teaser, and honestly I hate everything about it. One of the main themes on this album is being paranoid, which is what this song is about. My problem with this song isn’t the lyrics, it’s just the background melody. I feel like it doesn’t flow together and the sample from the song Nizakupanga Ngozi is just not my type of style. Sorry not sorry.
From what I’ve heard from my friends and social media, his most 50/50 song on the album was Sticky. Honestly, Sticky hate is SO forced. It’s actually a really good song and super easy to vibe to. For me, the features on the song are what make it so good. Glorilla, Sexyy Red, and Lil Wayne really add to the ambiance of the song. I also love the trumpets in the background, they go crazy.
I may be talking a lot about this, but I feel that it’s necessary to really dive into his songs and the message behind them. Speaking of, I think the song that most people could recognize had a deeper meaning was Like Him. Many Tyler fans already know that he has an absent father, who he has talked about in other songs such as Answer from the Wolf album.
What we learn in Like Him, is that his mom kicked Tyler out because he looked too much like his father. “I’m chasing the ghost of someone I don’t even know,” he says. This song represents so many emotions and feelings he has about his father, and at the end his mother asks him not to resent his dad. It’s really catchy as well and got popularized quickly on Tik Tok.
Honestly, it is so refreshing to have this kind of honesty coming from artists, especially one that is so popular. Many hip hop artists these days only talk about artificial things, take for example 21 savage. No hate for him because I love his music, but a lot of it only talks about meaningless stuff. I feel like I can’t stress enough how important it is to have these perspectives and personal experiences from artists being shared with the audience through their music. Music helps connect people, and by releasing this album, Tyler did exactly that by being open with his audience.
