Obviously, this album isn’t out yet. What’s equally obvious, though, is just how goddamn excited I am for this thing, so I can’t help but take the time today to speculate what to expect from Tyler, The Creator’s upcoming “Chromakopia.”
When Tyler broke his “album every two years” streak in 2023, choosing to only release a deluxe edition of the acclaimed “Call Me If You Get Lost,” he was already preparing us to be on guard for the unexpected. What no one saw coming, however, was a music video/album announcement merely a week and a half prior to its actual release. Watching the video, titled “ST CHROMA” immediately informed us that Tyler is hungry, and is ready to bring us a new era of his music with flying colors. With strong color coded theming as well, it seems.
The idea of this “St. Chroma” character interests me in particular, especially in the context of his last music video released for the CMIYGL era, “SORRY NOT SORRY.” Fans will remember the video’s depiction of Tyler seemingly killing his most recent alter ego, “Tyler Baudelaire” brutally with his bare hands. My interpretation of this at the time was that Tyler was stripping himself down from all of his false characters and moving towards a more personal approach. It can be a reasonable first assumption to think that Tyler discarded this idea only to choose yet another character for “Chromakopia,” but I think it’s deeper than that.
Once you look past the eerie, “Phantom Of The Opera” evoking mask this “St. Chroma” wears, it’s not hard to notice that it’s made completely in the likeness of Tyler, The Creator. Yes, it’s a mask, but hardly a convincing disguise. Really, all it does is serve to exaggerate Tyler’s own image. That’s what I think this album is going to hone in on. Both “St Chroma” and most recently, “Noid” have had lyrical content focusing on Tyler’s perspective on being a public figure. St Chroma with its tales of grandeur, and “Noid” with the hideous underbelly of being in the public view.
In “St Chroma,” Tyler talks of being inspired to take on the world, and eventually achieving it. In the video he orders faceless servants to walk into a shipping crate, followed by himself, that eventually explodes in complete fury. The militaristic angle on Tyler’s depiction may give us a clue on how he views his exaggerated persona on the album, perhaps giving way to his feelings of power or even responsibility in the music industry. What’s also interesting is his choice to switch the noir black and white aesthetic into complete color once the explosion ensues.
There’s a lot of theories that could be made on Tyler, The Creator’s emphasis on color for this album rollout, deliberately switching between color and the lack thereof. “Chroma” meaning color is the most obvious thing people garner from this album title. “Kopia” seems to be less agreed upon, and I’ve seen the meaning be given as “abundance,” “labor,” or “cut/separation.” Knowing Tyler, (which I definitely fucking don’t) it could be all three or none of them. What I’m interested in is how Tyler seems to view himself as one who controls color, and the switch between seeming to reflect a hidden reality versus the actual one.
Perhaps this album will explore Tyler’s insistence on having control over his life, when in reality he is subject to the same chaos as everybody else. He’s certainly explored this topic on previous projects like “IGOR,” so this wouldn’t surprise me.
My leading theory on the direction this album is headed in, though, is that “Chromakopia” will be Tyler’s exploration of his career/status and the ultimate destruction of everything he used to find important. When color first arrives to the “St. Chroma” video, an engulfing explosion is taking over both Tyler and his “followers.” When color is implemented in the claustrophobic and on-edge video for “Noid,” Tyler is pathetically flailing away from his own shadow, seemingly taking away the grandeur of what seemed like all-consuming danger in his every direction.
Given the minuscule snippet of an unknown song from his vinyl announcement video, he says the words “I hope you find yourself, and I hope you take your medicine.” Which could be him talking about somebody else in his life, or perhaps to his own self. I’m really under the belief that this album is Tyler putting a distorted and magnified mirror to his own image and pride, and him facing the reality of the world around him.
Of course, these theories are all completely baseless as the actual album isn’t even fucking out yet. It seems dumb to try to get ahead of the narrative, but this is all really for fun and because of my pure unbridled excitement. There’s obviously so much more to unpack from what we have but until “Chromakopia” releases on Monday, October 28, we won’t know for sure what he is trying to accomplish here. What I do know is that I’ve been stunned by everything I’ve heard thus far, and since Tyler, The Creator has been an intensely impactful artist on my life for years now, I am unbelievably ecstatic that this album is coming. There’s nothing left to do now but wait. I’ll likely want to do a full album review/dissection once that time comes, so stay tuned!
