‘Chromakopia’ by Tyler the Creator Is Here

This spring, just before headlining Coachella, Tyler the Creator promised his fans new music for this year and he surely meant it! It’s clear the fall is the start to a music harvest, as Tyler’s season rolls in. Chromakopia was first introduced by Tyler as he teased his fans with promo for his seventh album. At first, Tyler released the opening track “St. Chroma” and the single, “Noid” with a masked protagonist in a grayscale dimension. Tyler the Creator definitely isn’t new to presenting alter egos that represents each individual album; he’s a shapeshifter. He also announced the sale of customized vinyls and tour promos to rile his fans up with anticipation. Finally on October 28th, Tyler the Creator released his seventh studio album, Chromokopia via Columbia Records. The tracklist has 14 songs with features such as GloRilla, Daniel Caesar, Teezo Touchdown, Sexyy Redd and more. Many fans believe Tyler’s new album could be a reference to Chroma the Great, a character from Norton Juster’s classic children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth. In Juster’s fantasy world, Chroma is an orchestra conductor whose music brings color to the world. Seen on the music video for “St.Chroma” there is a world presented in monochromatic black and white setting; however, as soon as the beat drops, everything starts to brighten up with hues of greens. 

Tyler’s new alter ego named St.Chroma is a masked man in a military jacket directing everyone into a shipping container that he proceeds to blow up. Fans aren’t sure if the protagonist is evil or if there is more to his story. In black-and-white, St.Chroma runs away from crazed fans and locks himself into an isolated house with about a million deadbolts in the music video, “Noid.” The audience gets a sense that he feels unsafe as he frantically looks around, staring at figures in a mirror; however, they’re present in the house. Now that we have the full album, we can finally piece together the missing pieces to this puzzle of a character. Tyler is no stranger to giving the world a new friend.

Paired with the album, Tyler the Creator plans to promote his album all around the globe with the Chromakopia: The World Tour. Along with special guests Lil Yachty and Paris Texas, the tour will start on February 4th at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota and goes through major cities such as his hometown L.A., ATL, Miami, Chicago, New York before wrapping up on July 27th at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. He also has set dates in Europe, Australia and New Zealand for next year. He will also be celebrating the 10th anniversary of his music festival and carnival Camp Flog Gnaw at Dodger Stadium from November 16th to 17th. Erkyah Badu, Sexyy Redd, Playboy Carti, Doechii, etc are set to perform.

Listen to Chromakopia below.