Tyler, The Creator’s “Chromakopia” remains consistent in his older albums’ style while also presenting new narrative elements.
Tyler Okonma presents the “Chromakopian” aesthetic: a sensation of self-expression referenced in the nomenclature of the album title. The first half of the title, “Chroma-,” comes from the Greek root “chromo” which means color. The second half, “-kopia,” derives from the Latin “cōpia” which is translated “abundance.” The album’s title alone presents Okonma’s personality and modern hip-hops fluctuation. A dichotomy, however, emerges simultaneously with the culmination of some musical themes sparked in previous records “Flower Boy,” “Igor,” and “Call Me If You Get Lost,” and its thematic alter ego revealed in “Chromakopia.”
The record’s third track, “Noid,” exemplifies this aural culmination of previous records. Okonma paints a picture with the dynamic range of sounds offered by his own discography. He combines the soft vocal interludes of “Call Me If You Get Lost,” the synthesized lyrical lines of “Igor,” and the arpeggiated, colorful pads attributed to “Flower Boy.”
“Tomorrow,” the 12th track on the album reawakens the melodic motifs and sonic peaks-and-valleys of “Igor” tracks such as “Are We Still Friends?” The noticeable addition, however, lies in the linear, monophonic string melodies, a nostalgic nod to Okonma’s “Flower Boy.”
As a whole, the musical fruit of “Chromakopia” falls closest to the blossoming tree of Okonma’s egocentric, boisterous “mixtape,” “Call Me If You Get Lost.”
Amid ceaseless callbacks to past records, “Chromakopia” occasionally reveals distinctly new sounds. Marking the halfway point of the album, “I Killed You” demonstrates eclectic orchestration consisting of Spanish guitars, tribal rhythms, and burly brass sirens.
The eighth track, “Sticky,” summons Sexyy Red and company for an effect akin to other posse-prominent tracks such as Big Sean’s “Friday Night Cypher,” or Eminem and D12’s “When the Music Stops.” Each featured verse builds on the last, increasing in vigor and accompanied by raw, brass-heavy accompaniment.
Okonma’s own performance on “Sticky” shares similarities with his recent collaborations with Maxo Kream, a robust, unabashed declaration of affluent charisma. The characteristically “Chromakopian crunch” of the brass returns in “I Thought I Was Dead,” which overshadows its similarities with “Call Me If You Get Lost”-era “Juggernaut” with a fierceness that embodies the “Chromakopian” aesthetic.
Despite the instrumentation’s heavy reliance on past records, Okonma’s personal development also emerges. The narrative of “Chromakopia” carries an angst typical of a mid-life crisis. Okonma turns to young-adult topics concerning romantic commitment, identity, parenthood, and the inevitability of death. Lyrics like “The thought of children, it brings me stress / Because time is changing” stated on the track “Tomorrow,” reveal Okonma’s uncertainty regarding adult pressures. He continues to question his identity on the track, “Like Him,” comparing his character to that of his absent father, stating, “Do I look like him? / How could I miss something I never had?”
Okonma finds his answers in the same place he finds his creativity, Hawthorne, California: home. “I Hope You Find Your Way Home” — the album’s closer, expresses Okonma’s value of his roots, “Hawthorne is where him [Okonma] from / Back in Chromakopia / The light comes from within.” Okonma clings to home as a bulwark against the future’s fickleness, trusting that his beginnings will spark his future nuance.