"Can you feel the light inside? Can you feel that fire? / Fire, fire / Can you feel the light inside? Can you feel that fire? / Fire, fire"
i don't think it gets much better than CHROMAKOPIA. it's one of the contenders for my single favorite album of all time, and it's between CHROMAKOPIA and DAMN. when it comes to my favorite hip-hop album. i'll admit it: i wasn't too taken with it when i first listened. after a few more listens, though, songs i used to hate began to grow on me, and now it's easily within my top 5 albums of all time.
there's an electric (and dare i say "eclectic") mix of sounds and techniques on display throughout the entire album. you've got this incredible mix of high-energy percussion (see Rah Tah Tah or Sticky), wonderful electronic and synth sounds (see Noid or Judge Judy), beautiful piano tracks (see Take Your Mask Off or Like Him): and this all gets compounded by what is by far tyler's best vocal performance. CHROMAKOPIA is chock full of wonderful flow, great rhyming schemes, and seamless mixing between tyler's vocals and the backing tracks. similar to how kendrick interacts with the backing tracks on DAMN., tyler weaves his voice perfectly into the instrumentation. St. Chroma is a wonderful example of what i mean: by whispering he not only lets the marching of st. chroma's army take center stage but also forces us to listen closer to what he's saying. it's an album that really wants you to listen to what it has to say, and when St. Chroma reaches its crescendo it hits us with this tidal wave of raw bass and synth that sets the tone for the entire album. it is an intense sitting.
CHROMAKOPIA is a dense, heavy album. the themes it carries aren't light ones, and it manages to connect them all: tyler's struggles with his sexuality and identity as a public figure, his relationship with his family and the culture around him, the repression and oppression of black americans historically and in the present, and the album's main overarching theme—lying to oneself and repressing your identity for the sake of the people around you. Hey Jane explores a woman lying by omission about her cancer to enjoy her life, Take Your Mask Off is the most blatant example of this theme, I Killed You uses the experience of black americans being forced to repress their culture and expression to fit the white american mindset, Like Him explores tyler's mother admitting she lied to him about what happened with his father.
the entire album is, at its core, a story of accepting your past and present as the foundation for your identity, and coming to terms with both your highest moments and those dark recesses of your mind and history you really don't want to dig into. it's a message that resonates a lot with me personally. at the same time, though, CHROMAKOPIA can be unbelievably funny! Balloon hits us with "I air this bitch out like a queef" right after tyler is finished singing about how everything he thought he knew about his father was a fiction, and it somehow flows together seamlessly. i feel like that's kind of the point: life has its ups and downs, its depressing moments and its hilarious ones, and the line between those isn't so obvious sometimes.
i love, love, love, love, love CHROMAKOPIA. it's a fantastic piece of contemporary art. i don't think there's anything i could give it besides a
