Tyler, The Creator’s ‘Chromakopia’ Homecoming: Takeaways From His Listening Party

Tyler, The Creator ushered in the Chromakopia era a bit early with a last-minute listening party at Los Angeles’s high-tech Intuit Dome Sunday night, spending over an hour thrashing on a stage of green shipping containers while a crowd of 17,000 fans listened to his newest album for the very first time.

It was a homecoming for the LA rapper, who told the crowd Sunday night that Chromakopia “originated with growing up in these areas.” “I was like ‘oh shit, nobody knows anything about me from before [I was 17],” Tyler, wearing a green military suit, said.

Tyler was in his element, marching onto the stage just past 9 p.m. wearing his military garb and the same plastic mask from the “Noid” music video. As the album played, he was pacing back and forth from one end of the stage to the other, flailing his arms around, sprinting in place and lying on the ground, taking the occasional break to stare off into the crowd and take in his moment.

His first album in three years, Tyler is employing a unique approach for Chromakopia‘s rollout, breaking from the industry standard of dropping at Midnight on Friday and instead hoping fans will take the whole week to digest the new record with a 6 a.m. Monday release. “Don’t lose y’all sleep trying to stay up, go to sleep,” he joked to his fans in the arena on Sunday as the album was hours from release. “I’m excited for y’all to hear the album the second time, that second time when it hits you, you know if you fuckin’ think it’s the worst thing ever or if you’re really fucking with it.”

Tyler gets introspective
Tyler’s long evolution from transgressive shock rapper into one of hip-hop’s finest storytellers remains on full display on Chromakopia. As Tyler explained to the crowd after the album finally concluded, most of this record was inspired by the things his mother would tell him in his youth that he was too young to understand. Only in adulthood are those lessons truly clicking.

“Now that I’m 33, all that stuff is like ‘oh that’s what the fuck she was talking about,” Tyler, literally dripping with sweat, told the crowd Sunday night. “‘Oh I’m not the guy I was at 20. Oh shit, people are getting older, folks having kids and families.’ All I’ve got is a new Ferrari, that does feel kind of weird. I’ve got a grey hair on my chest. Life is life. I just wanted to write about stuff I think about when I’m dolo’ing.”‘

A rapper grows up
Those lessons have led to some profound material as Chromakopia grapples with increasingly challenging artistic themes like adulthood, fatherhood, and love. Tyler specifically digs in about pregnancy as well as the fears of becoming a father. “Who am I to bitch and complain? You’ve got to deal with all the mental and the physical shit,” he raps. “All the heaviest emotions and the physical pain just to give a kid the man’s last name? Fuck that.”

He poignantly seems to tell a lover to “take off your mask” on one track, particularly fitting given that Tyler himself had covered his own face in a mask until the very last song on Sunday.

New sounds
Sonically, Chromakopia embraces some new, moodier sounds that match the vibe he’s established on stage with the military fit. Tyler still retains some of the familiar elements that have lined his music since the Flower Boy period, though. Some of Chromakopia’s slower songs are almost reminiscent of Tyler’s raps, like “Wilshire” from Call Me If You Get Lost. Overall, the album is still high-energy, and Tyler’s still quick with clever, goofy quips. The crowd cracked up and cheered as Tyler rapped, “fuck what you heard, I’m that n***a, and I’m that bitch,” as one of the final verses on the entire album.

Hip-hop’s buzziest women give standout features
Among the features we caught at the listening party were Schoolboy Q, Teezo Touchdown, Daniel Caesar, and Lil Wayne, though it was Doechii, Glorilla, And Sexyy Red who earned most of the attention. “Sticky” in particular — which features Glo and Sexyy’s verses — looks to be the album’s runaway hit, if the crowd’s reaction during the show was any indication, at least.

What is a Chromakopia exactly?
That question still remained unanswered by the end of the night, still not explained through the military imagery, dark green colors, and industrial vibes accompanying the material on the record. Still, the aesthetic is consistent, with the cameras showing Tyler in the same monochrome grey shown in most of the Noid music video last week. The imagery’s symbolism will likely become more clear as the album rolls out.