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Tyler, the Creator: Chromakopia review – early midlife crisis triggers a freaked-out psychodrama


Full of switchback turns, the rapper’s unsettled and unsettling seventh album zaps from Beach Boys harmonies to G-funk synths – and from boasts to self-loathing

Lyrically, Chromakopia gives every impression of being both prosaic and personal: it feels somehow telling that none of the album’s guest artists – Lil Wayne and Childish Gambino among them – have been listed on streaming services, as if trumpeting their presence would distract from its inward-looking mood. Whether your failure to find a lasting relationship thus far means you’re fated to live the rest of your life alone; whether parenthood is something you’re capable of embracing; whether you’re doomed to repeat the mistakes made by your own parents; whether the career you’ve been pursuing is sufficiently rewarding in and of itself. Judge Judy starts out as a standard-issue sex rhyme – “body rubs, bondage and cream pies” – complete with a backing track peppered with orgasmic moans, but ends with a suicide note, while Like Him ponders the topic of paternal abandonment before winding up with the voice of Tyler, the Creator’s mother, informing him that it’s her fault he never met his father.

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