Tyler, the Creator: Chromakopia review – early midlife crisis triggers a freaked-out psychodrama | Tyler, the Creator

News of Tyler, the Creator’s seventh album got here as one thing of a shock: it arrived a matter of months after he introduced on social media that he wouldn’t be releasing any new music this 12 months. The promotional marketing campaign during the last couple of weeks prompt that Chromakopia could be a high-concept piece of labor, the form of album that takes listeners a very long time to totally unpick. It concerned a succession of mysterious movies that shifted from the sepia tones of an outdated TV present into full color, generally – however not at all times – that includes the rapper carrying a masks and a army uniform: directing a platoon of males right into a transport container with the album’s title emblazoned on its aspect, which he then blew up; barging his manner by means of a crowd of individuals earlier than being assailed by a fan whose enthusiasm turns right into a form of eye-rolling insanity and whose cellphone turns into a gun; rapping on high of a army plane inside which his masked alter ego lurks, glowering. Hypothesis as to what all of it meant adopted, because it was clearly supposed to: one continuously floated idea was that the album would contain the debut of latest persona, probably based mostly on a personality from the traditional youngsters’s novel The Phantom Tollbooth.

However, just like the announcement that no new music was forthcoming, the enterprise with the masks seems to be misdirection, at the least so far as an alter ego is worried. Lyrically, Chromakopia provides each impression of being each prosaic and private: it feels one way or the other telling that not one of the album’s visitor artists – Lil Wayne and Infantile Gambino amongst them – have been listed on streaming providers, as if trumpeting their presence would distract from its inward-looking temper. There’s stuff in regards to the pressures of fame (Noid and Rat Tah Tah prickle with mistrust of everybody from Tyler, the Creator’s accountants to his followers) and a swaggering dismissal of his critics on Thought I Was Useless, however the principle lyrical themes that run by means of it are the form of worries that are inclined to beset folks at that time in your 30s the place it turns into abundantly clear to even probably the most ostensibly irresponsible and carefree particular person that you just’re now an grownup. Whether or not your failure to discover a lasting relationship to this point means you’re fated to stay the remainder of your life alone; whether or not parenthood is one thing you’re able to embracing; whether or not you’re doomed to repeat the errors made by your individual dad and mom; whether or not the profession you’ve been pursuing is sufficiently rewarding in and of itself.

These are seldom simple inquiries to reply, which maybe accounts for why Chromakopia sounds so unsettled. The lyrics double again and contradict themselves – switching from boastful self-aggrandisement to crippling self-doubt and loathing, generally within the area of a single verse. On Tomorrow he goes from loudly proclaiming his free-spiritedness – “I don’t like cages, I’d moderately be flooding” – to confessing a type of despairing vacancy: “All I acquired is pictures of my ’Rari and a few foolish fits.”

Elsewhere, its tracks tend to finish up within the final place you count on. Choose Judy begins out as a standard-issue intercourse rhyme – “physique rubs, bondage and cream pies” – full with a backing monitor peppered with orgasmic moans, however ends with a suicide be aware, whereas Like Him ponders the subject of paternal abandonment earlier than winding up with the voice of Tyler, the Creator’s mom, informing him that it’s her fault he by no means met his father. On Take Your Masks Off, he admonishes a succession of figures for dwelling a lie, from a homophobe who seems to be a closeted gay to a rich however sad housewife, earlier than all of a sudden turning the lyrical give attention to himself: “You discuss numerous shit to not even be primary.”

The music is equally unsettled. Tracks shift and slip their moorings, lurching from one sound to a different, continuously altering fully over the course of some minutes. Musical concepts gush chaotically forth. Noid is constructed round distorted, heavy-metal-ish guitars, however the energy chords they strike hold abruptly short-circuiting to oddly disquieting impact: a putting pattern from 70s Zamrock band Ngozi Household vies for area with Willow Smith’s softly cooing backing vocals. Elsewhere, minimal Neptunes-influenced beats abut lush Seaside Boys harmonies, and folky acoustic guitar figures seem alongside lush G-funk-inspired synths and the sound of an 80s R&B gradual jam is disturbed by machine-gun drum rolls. It’s held collectively by a profusion of gasps and grunts and feral barks that thread by means of the rhythm tracks, lending even probably the most laid-back tracks a claustrophobic really feel.

After an hour, it ends with none actual sense of decision: the closing monitor is known as I Hope You Discover Your Means Residence, however one doesn’t maintain out a lot hope. It finds Tyler, the Creator nonetheless thrashing round – “I’m slipping, I’m slipping … I want a hand” – continually contradicting himself about his hopes for the long run. An album that started with its creator denying its existence, Chromakopia in the end appears to manifest a state of confusion, wherein every little thing is in flux and nothing is kind of because it initially appears. It achieves that to enthralling and exhausting impact.