🤿Media Dives: Tyler, The Creator’s ‘CHROMAKOPIA’ comes as his 8th Studio Album, as a follow up to his Grammy Award winning project, ‘Call Me If you Get Lost’. The thematic focus of the album, as many speculate, including myself, is based off the story of Chroma the Great, a conductor whose orchestra is said to create the colors of the world (The Phantom Tollbooth, 1961). We see this hinted at in the video for the album’s teaser (St. Chroma), where the entire video stays in black-and-white, until we get to the drop, instantly lighting up our frame with a literal explosion of colors. As we go through the album, I’ll be talking mostly about my favourite tracks, some critique (no “/“ track, iykyk), and how cohesive the overall project seemed to me.
For Tyler’s music, a bit of context is always important to truly appreciate his albums in its entirety (all of which are written, produced, and directed by him). For those unaware, Tyler started off projecting an edgy and dark vibe with almost all his music, with albums like ‘Bastard’ and ‘Goblin’. Afterwards, we heard Tyler shifting and changing his sound completely with the experimental ‘Cherry Bomb’, before we saw him do a complete 180 on his first Grammy Nominated project, ‘Flower Boy’. On said album, we heard Tyler’s sound and lyrics shift into more melodic performances, contrasting his previous image, and embracing a more feminine side as we saw him publicly hint at his bisexuality on tracks like ‘I Ain’t Got Time’. We travelled from there, to ‘IGOR’, Tyler’s first Grammy winning project. The dark themes of love and desire explored there seemed to complete his character arc to the public, as his next project, ‘Call Me If You Get Lost’, his second win, went into his well-earned braggadocious verses, smooth melodic beats, and tasteful features on what seemed to be an album showing off how he had finally made it and how things were at the top. This leads us to Tyler’s latest project, ‘CHROMAKOPIA’.
(Chromakopia ring concept by reddit user ThunderMuffin69)
