Tyler, The Creator’s newest album “Chromakopia” was released on October 28, 2024 and the anticipation for it enveloped the internet. Tyler’s prior album, “Call Me If You Get Lost” (CMIYGL) was released back in 2021, and fans of the artist were excited for a new installment in his discography.
This was not the only thing sparking interest of supporters; once the teaser for the opening track “St. Chroma” was introduced to social media, theories of the individuals who would be featured on the album became the main conversation.
Certain feature members were obvious from the start; Daniel Caesar’s vocals shone bright and practically confirmed the collaboration. However, some others were not as easily validated, with the strongest rumor regarding a feature from Frank Ocean, which unfortunately remains unconfirmed.
While some of the themes of Tyler’s past albums involve the exploration of romantic entanglements and unbridled confidence, his newest dealt more with the artist’s more deep and profound questions surrounding family, legacy, and identity.
One of the topics I found felt like the backbone of the album is the complicated relationship Tyler expresses about the fact that he has found himself with the realization that he is aging.
A conversation that meets most individuals at some point in life has apparently creeped up on the artist, and he shares his battles with the signs of maturity that he now views within himself. Obvious doubts he has about the colorful euphoria that youth carries withering away are combated by the advice of his mother, Bonita Smith.
This is where the fire behind the opening track takes place; the “light” that is continuously referred to in the song is the encouragement of keeping his passion for his work alive as he experiences the journey through adulthood.
Though there may be many who have become accustomed to the structure of Tyler’s albums involving some sort of character, not a direct reflection of Tyler himself, this album changes that trend. “Chromakopia” does not introduce a new fictional character who is separate from Tyler, but it is instead the allusive manifestation of the “truth” of who Tyler is as a human being.
This concept is heavily involved with the previously mentioned maturing that Tyler is expressing. This idea is not exactly brand new, because it was evoked by the music video regarding the song “SORRY NOT SORRY” from CMIYGL where we see Tyler beating and ending the lives of his past alter egos.
The other point of the album that really caught my attention was the seemingly constant referral to fatherhood that Tyler embedded in the album. Each time the image of becoming a father is brought up, Tyler speaks on it in a manner that appears as complete stress.
In the track, “Hey Jane”, he brings up a pregnancy scare that brought in serious consideration of being a father, “Ain’t in the space to raise no goddamn child. Hey, Jane, I’m terrified, petrified”.
This is brought up again in “Tomorrow” and the song starts with Tyler’s mother bringing up her desire to become a grandmother: “I’m gettin’ old and I need a grandchild, please…The thought of children, it brings me stress”. This is another instance of Tyler expressing that in the current state that he is in, children are not on his mind.
He truly closes this topic with the final track of the album, “I Hope You Find Your Way Home”, this is where the topic of materialism is met with the more pressing matters of life. Tyler states that even if it might be deemed selfish, having a child is not of interest, but he makes sure to include a line that ensures that it may not be his final decision.
One of the more trending songs of the album is “Like Him” which is the release of very personal feelings and information that relate to his own father. This is a topic that is not new to his discography, as it has empowered his work from the beginning, but here, there is a shift to the story.
In the song, Tyler questions whether or not he looks like his father, sort of pushing away from that as he expresses the fact that he was able to make it with only his mother caring for him.This is encouraged by the fact that he feels he has been chasing a “ghost”, since his dad was never in his life, but at the end of the song Bonita Smith reveals that she kept the information that Tyler’s father always wanted to be involved his life and she kept him out of it.
It’s plausible that the previous idea he had of his father is what created his relationship with the idea of becoming a father, but this new side of the story has further twisted those feelings and complicated them more.
“Chromakopia” marks a period of artistic evolution for Tyler, leaving listeners with an album that resonates on both personal and societal levels.