Tyler, the Creator, recently released Chromakopia, his eighth studio album early on the Monday morning of October 28th. The 14-song album originally did not advertise the other artists on the album, making each feature a surprise, but in the following days revealed the features, including Lil Wayne, GloRilla, Sexyy Red, Teezo Touchdown, and various other artists, including Playboi Carti exclusively being heard on the physical copy of the album; Perhaps the most interesting feature, however, is Tyler’s mother.
During a listening party in his hometown of Inglewood, California, Tyler explained that the album was originally intended to talk about his life when he was younger, but the album eventually changed to focus on the advice his mother had given him, saying “…But the album now has turned into me taking a bunch of sh*t my mom told me as a kid. Now that I’m 33 all of that stuff is like, ‘Oh, that’s what the f*ck she was talking about. Oh, I’m not the guy that I was at 20. Like, oh sh*t, people are getting older…’”
Chromakopia is the third album released by Tyler to hit number one on the Billboard 200, and is by far his best-selling album, even after such a short time of being released, selling almost 300,000 albums in just the first week, beating other large albums released this year such as Eminem’s The Death of Slim Shady, which only sold 280,000 copies, and stayed on the top spot for only a week, while Chromakopia still remains on the top spot after over two weeks.
The album is a mix of mellow, emotional songs and exciting, upbeat ones, with a big opening lineup of “St Chroma”, which had been a snippet in the trailer for the album, “Rah Tah Tah” , a song that was not teased, and “Noid”, the single Tyler had released a few days before the album, keeping the audience engaged and excited as the album moved to calmer songs, with “Thought I Was Dead” and “Sticky” sprinkled in to keep the calm songs from mixing into each other too much. All of these songs came together to create an album which draws you in with the excitement of the opening and keeps you listening with Tyler’s excellent storytelling through his music and leaves you with the feeling of satisfaction of having listened to what could be the best album of the year.
