Tyler, The Creator has had several shifts throughout his career. The Los Angeles based rapper, who started with inflammatory lines laid on top of funky, out-of-left-field beats, has now transitioned to more self-reflective tracks, all while keeping his unique sound.
Tyler prioritized shock and stunts in his artistic performance as well and was often disinvited from certain events, turned away from others and even banned from whole countries.
Over time his style changed, and his fanbase came to see a new side of him.
Homophobic jabs turned to rap sonnets for male lovers and long-winded apologies for his bisexual disposition. Threats of cartoonish violence morphed into psychoanalysis of those who found him distasteful.
Tyler began to put out music that topped charts and stimulated conversation, a far more involved way of making music than just seeing how crazy of a statement he could craft.
The way that Tyler analyzed his own life was always the subject of his art, so his rise to superstardom saw a sharp change in how he produced music.
Now, on his seventh full-length release, “CHROMAKOPIA,” Tyler is firmly seated near the top of the rap pyramid — he says as much in the intro track of this album. The musician is looking to establish himself as an elder statesman of West Coast rap and succeeds on multiple fronts.
As the album starts, we get the classic braggadocious lines that Tyler is so well known for. From there, the album transitions to a world where Tyler is no longer the LA skater kid making beats with Frank Ocean. However, he is not the artist who exploded into the mainstream with three nominations and two winners for best rap album in five years at the Grammys either.
Instead, Tyler is a father, a scared kid, an unsure lover and a man of mistakes all at the same time. Life is messy, nerve-racking and complicated. Once you feel like you have mastered something, the world throws you a curveball, and you have to rethink your whole strategy.
That’s what this album is. A further development of Tyler’s iconic style that so many rappers emulate, with a subject matter relevant to the age group of his oldest and most loyal fans.
Pop music is a young man’s game. Very infrequently do the concerns of a 30-something seep into top-40 radio play. This time, though, they have, and the result is a truly something special.
