At 6:00 AM, on October 28, 2024, Tyler, The Creator, dropped his long-awaited eighth full-length project, “Chromakopia.” It quickly became the biggest Hip Hop album debut of 2024 on Spotify and was completely produced by Tyler.
The Review
In short, this album is fantastic and an enjoyable listen the entire way through. The album does everything in its power to sound great and succeeds. The album starts off strong with “St. Chroma,” a perfect introduction to the sound of the album. It’s a slow build, but when the strong point of the song hits, it hits hard. Featuring vocals from Canadian R&B singer Daniel Caesar, Tyler creates a melodic art piece in song form.
A recurring subject of the album is the intense paranoia and pressure Tyler, The Creator feels due to his celebrity status, as seen in songs like “Rah Tah Tah,” “Noid,” and “Tomorrow.” While keeping true to his stage persona and bouncing music style, he manages to be honest with himself, and his audience, about his feelings about himself and his life.
Through multiple tracks on the album, Tyler gets extremely personal, speaking about his relationships and family. Songs like “Darling, I” and “Judge Judy” tackle his issues with love and commitment, rawly revealing his deepest insecurities. Also, throughout the album, he tells the story of a pregnancy scare, with the result of said scare being left ambiguous. While it is unknown how true this story is to his real life, moments like these make the album even more personal. The same trend is carried through songs like “Hey Jane,” “I Killed You,” and “I Hope You Find Your Way Home.”
Despite the undeniable strength of these pieces, though, the most impactful songs of the album are “Take Your Mask Off” and “Like Him,” two beautifully crafted songs that provide perspective on multiple intensely emotional topics. The former discusses gang violence, abuse, orientation, depression, and Tyler’s own personal insecurity and self-doubt, while the latter addresses Tyler’s feelings about his absent father. The track begins with a deeply emotional statement from his mother that she genuinely said to him on a phone call during the album’s recording.
This is not intended to imply, though, that the album stays at this level of intensity. The album contains plenty of simply fun bops to enjoy as well. Songs like “Sticky,” “Balloon,” & “Thought I Was Dead” are all fun to listen to and memorable.
“Sticky” is one of the more popular songs from this project. It features Glorilla, Sexyy Red, and Lil Wayne. Like many other songs on “Chromokopia,” it didn’t list any featured artists when it was first released, which is one of the reasons it became such a huge discussion on TikTok. As of January 2025, the track is still a popular tune on the app. It has its own fan-made dance and has been used for over 31k videos. Many schools across the world have also played instrumental versions of the song in marching band routines for competitions and football games.
Overall, this album consists of fourteen beautifully constructed songs. Spending three weeks at No. 1 on Billboard, this release made a significant impact in the music world for 2024.
Song Rankings:
- St. Chroma: 4/5
- Rah Tah Tah: 4/5
- Noid: 4.5/5
- Darling, I: 4/5
- Hey Jane: 4.5/5
- I Killed You: 4/5
- Judge Judy: 3/5
- Sticky: 3.5/5
- Take Your Mask Off: 5/5
- Tomorrow: 4/5
- Thought I Was Dead: 5/5
- Like Him: 5/5
- Balloon: 4/5
- I Hope You Find Your Way Home: 3.5/5
Album Score: 4.5/5
