See, I’m a Westside nigga from the zone (What’s goin’ on, nigga?) Knock, knock, knock, knock, knockin’ at the door (I’m knockin’ at the door) I keep them mink-minks on hip ’cause I keloid my fists (Mm) Nigga, give a fuck ’bout pronouns, I’m that nigga and that bitch
Aw, mate, this album is so fucking good. It literally hurts my soul to have it as low as second. And you all know what’s first now, don’t you? Yeah. I tried so hard to be different from the Normies but some things are just undeniable…
Yeah, the accepted ‘Big Three’ of rap (Drake, J. Cole,Kenny) has engaged a bit of a restructuring in 2024. Obviously, Pulitzer Prize winning, white nerds’ fave Kendrick Lamar is kind of his own special category, but the reason Drake and J. Cole were considered part of the trifecta is because they were insanely successful, critically at least tolerated, and (during their regal phases) made banging pop-adjacent rap that connected with the masses while still being considered acceptably cool to like. I’m using a lot of past tense here. Drake and J. Cole, for various reasons, had already been falling badly out of favour in the past few years, but in 2024 Kendrick Lamar arrived at their fortified mansion in the town of Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, took Drake and J. Cole into the basement, and bloodily bayoneted them to death. Brutal? Absolutely. But it was the right thing to do.
The thing is… despite being unashamedly weird, despite being one of the most notable ‘underground’ rappers, despite joyfully taking their music to creative peaks that few other people can envision, ‘CHROMAKOPIA’ was Tyler’s fourth consecutive number one album in the US. It even became their first album to reach number one in the UK, and we’re generally a bit reticent on rap music that isn’t by Will Smith or Eminem. Two months after its release, it’s near enough sold double what any previous Tyler record has sold. This fellow is a big fucking deal. And there aren’t many 2024 number one albums as artistically valid, as esoterically experimental as ‘CHROMAKOPIA’. And, even if you don’t count the unsatisfying homage of 2021’s ‘Call Me if You Get Lost’, Tyler now has a back catalogue that dwarves so many of their peers when it comes to sheer quality.
And ‘CHROMAKOPIA’ is their best yet. Yeah, I know some people disagree, but unfortunately they’re incorrect. Tyler’s most emotionally open album, although the brilliant promotional get-up that included Tyler wearing a mask of their own face* might also suggest that it’s all in the character of someone being open. Or is it a reference to how Tyler, who already has a bit of a chameleon like reputation, is trying on the gimmick of being themselves for the first time? Whatever, I love it, I love this album. It’s a jagged, schizophrenic struggle with Tyler’s own psyche that’s narrated by their own mother. Some reviews have described it as an ‘early’ mid-life crisis, but… Mate, Tyler’s 33, motherfucker’s just old. It touches on Tyler’s (perhaps delicate) bravado, their difficulties with monogamy when measured up against their artistic ambitions, their intense paranoia, and if having kids is a good idea.
(*it feels so weird that Tyler is so popular, that when Swerve Strickland paid tribute to the ‘CHROMAKOPIA’ at Full Gear 2024 my first thought was “Oh my God! That’s such a deep cut!! Nobody apart from me is going to get that!!”. The album was number one on the charts at the time)
That baby track, Hey Jane (also the name of a US abortion clinic), is the album’s lyrical highlight, and also for the longest time the track that put this album above the one that’s finally finished above it (don’t pretend you’re too stupid to know what album that is!!!). An affecting, balanced, and mature conversation between a couple (“Hey, T, your legs long and your waist thin/And we can both relate to the fact we got great skin/You’re not dumb, and your energy is a good mood/A lil’ weird, but overall, you’s a good dude, huh”) talking about an accidental pregnancy and whether it’s right to bring a baby into their relationship. It’s so wonderfully written, endlessly easy to relate to and has a deep understanding of both would be parents’ concerns and hopes. From someone who once wrote the lyric (ahem) “Rape a pregnant bitch and tell my friends I had a threesome“. The number one album of 2024 also has a song about pregnancy, and it’s just awful: childlike wonder and sickly sweet paeans to the ‘miracle’ of childbirth like “How sublime/What a joy, oh my, oh my/Standing there/Same old clothes she wore before, holding her child, yeah/She’s a radiant mother and he’s a beautiful father/And now they both know these things that I don’t”. And here’s Tyler with an actual adult response to childbirth and pregnancy:
This my fault, the results are justified I fucked up, I’m stressed out, I’m dead inside But, hey, Jane, who am I to come bitch and complain? You gotta deal with all the mental and the physical change All the heaviest emotions, and the physical pain Just to give the kid the man last name? Fuck that (That’s dumb as fuck)
…
Hey, T, I’m scared too (I am too) It was so hard for me to tell you, to tell truth I ain’t wanna tell me, I look in the mirror, like, damn, I failed me I’m scared to tell my mama, scared to tell my bitches Scared of all the people who don’t know us in our business Scared of all they advice and my intuition Scared of not knowin’, but too scared to make decisions
Like, surely this is the album of the year, right??
So what do the couple decide?? We never find out, and the song ends with no decision either way, with the couple just deciding “T, no matter the decision today, I just want us to be cool either way/No pressure”.
‘CHROMAKOPIA’ is an absolute marvel, that manages to be erratic and tonally all over the place but still work that into the overall cohesion of a dude in their 30’s confused about what exactly they’re supposed to be doing at this point in life. It’s a shock to find out that the album lasts 55 minutes, as the sheer rush of ideas and ingenious left, right and backward turns over the course of the record means you find yourself at closing track I Hope You Find Your Way Homein record time each listen. Guess you’ll have to listen again?
But… it isn’t the best album of 2024. Not quite. The quality across its 14 tracks is astonishingly and consistently high, but there aren’t any truly killer highs like there are on the number one album (you know what it is. You know it!!). Tyler remains, quite rare in rap, way more of an album than a single artist. We can keep comparing Tyler to Kenny, but Tyler doesn’t have his ownDNA or Alright yet. Yeah, I know, this should be strictly a list of the year’s best albums, but the fact is that the number one record is an amazing album that also has DNAs coming out of its anus. And I appreciate how Tyler loves some sweet crooning, going back to their ‘Igor’/Earfquake persona, and on Darling I here. But… it sounds so naff. Technically, their singing is fine, but they always go for the most saccharine and childlike melodies that just, I’m sorry, make the song sound kinda dumb. Mate, just sample some more Ngozi Family! That shit’s fire!
Pobwela panyumba panga, uyenela ku nkala ndi ulemu (Paranoid) Chifukwa, ine sinifuna vokamba, kamba Vokamba kamba vileta pa mulomo (Wotangozi, wotangozi)
(rough translation from Nyanja: When you come at my house, please be respectful. Because I don’t like talking too much. Talking too much breeds gossip.)
These are small, petty things, yes. But I am a small, fat, petty man. It is within such fine lines that the science behind the Necessary Evil album of the year is decided. ‘CHROMAKOPIA’ is an astonishing piece of work. I like it better than any Kenny album, anyway. Overrated ass. And when did he become such a cunty fool?
Necessary Evil 
2 thoughts on “#2 Tyler, The Creator: CHROMAKOPIA”