The Chromakopia World Tour, and Finding your Light
Before Tyler, the Creator's surprise new album drops tomorrow, let’s delve into the meaning of his most recent body of work: Chromakopia: The World Tour.
Everything is green. A potent hue, pervasive in its darkness, yet penetratingly illuminating. Arenas serve as its perfectly dim home; even the security guards are more eager than usual to stop flash photography from invading its permanence.
This is the ambiance for what is one of the greatest, most thought-provoking shows this columnist has ever seen, if not its pinnacle.
Tyler, the Creator starts the shows on his Chromakopia tour cinematically. His mother, exactly as she ushers in the album for which the tour bears its name, starts things off with her breathy voice: “You are the light – it’s not on you, it’s in you.”
Like a good high school paper, our thesis is laid out for us right at the onset.
Before we delve too much deeper, let me lay out what I believe to be the central questions this thesis begets – (1) how does one find the light, and, perhaps more abstractly, (2) what do the relationships between artist, art, and audience mean for a further exploration of this light? (In other words, why convey this light via an album and a live show at all?)
Now, the show. Two large shipping containers, until this point the only things visible on the stage serving as a sort of makeshift curtain separating artist from crowd, now part in the middle. Out walks an army-clad Tyler, in an outfit complete with almost comically large shoulder pads and a wig with two large tufts of hair where devil horns (not unlike the corners of the Chromakopia logo itself) might be. Half of his face is covered with an almost inhuman mask of himself that the rapper adorns on the album cover, creating an eerie sense of separation between realities. He stomps emphatically in time with the album’s first song, “St. Chroma,” barking into the microphone. Things are gruff, manly, and assertive, and yet utterly vulnerable. Just as the next two hours will be.
At the climactic bass drop, fireworks and flames shoot up behind Tyler in a brief fit of light. The artist himself stands with his arms outstretched, his head skyward, wordless. Through it all, the dark green shines over the crowd of fifty-some-odd thousand.
I’ve rarely been so encapsulated in a show. I got tickets day-of for the first of a two-night pitstop in Chicago’s United Center, right on the floor. Some of the most theatrical, original, and utterly titillating performance techniques I’ve seen utilized on stage. Tyler performs utterly alone on his tours – and for good reason, it seems to me. He provides enough energy for three stages all his own.
Like most great tours, this show centers on a central narrative and a brilliant repurposing of the artist’s catalog to reshape it into the current thesis. I think this is an all-too forgotten part of performance, neglected often by audiences but always felt subconsciously. If you’ve ever been wowed by a show, felt completely taken aback by a performer, left and felt an inescapable crater upon departure, it was because of some underlying brilliance on the part of the artist. Every cathartic moment in a show is earned – you’re not just crying because you love the song or the artist, but because the way it has been presented is unavoidably emotional.
So, for that reason, let’s talk Chromakopia.
Chapter 1: Drill Sergeant
In a wildly unexpected turn for such a tenured and popular artist, Tyler starts off the show with 8 of the first 9 songs from his most recent album (with the exception, eagle-eyed fans may not be surprised, of the abortion-centered “Hey Jane”). “Rah Tah Tah” sees Tyler rambunctiously braggadocios; “Noid” has every bit of the paranoia of the album cut; “Darling, I” and “Judge Judy” are playful jolts of crowd engagement, the latter of which conversationally relayed while Tyler’s legs dangle seated over the edge of the lower shipping container comprising the stage. “I Killed You” takes a zestier approach, as overlaid atop the already hypnotic sonic landscape is the sampled drum loop from Snoop Dogg and (Tyler’s mentor and greatest inspiration) Pharrell’s 2004 hit “Drop It Like It’s Hot.”
The songs themselves are fun, revealing when not all out braggadocio, but, because they are mostly face-value and because a mask separates us from their source, there is no therapeutic discovery yet. There is yet to be any real discussion of what emotionally underlies these fears and stories. We still are dealing with Tyler, the Creator, not Tyler Okonma.
For that reason, through this first section, Tyler is unexpectedly calculated. Typically at his shows, he is known for his somewhat extemporaneous style, wherein he dances seemingly at whim and often stops to directly speak to one audience member or another, singing happy birthday to a fan and replacing “to you” with “fuck you.” Not for this first half-hour, though – here, he has the composure of a drill sergeant, at times (particularly during the more melodic choruses) conducting the audience with marionette-like hands. Every movement is thought out, and even his dance moves take on a more trained and tenuous motion.
If you’ll forgive a quick diatribe, this reminded me uncannily of a 2022 tour for an album that Tyler has said himself serves as a great inspiration for Chromakopia: Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers Tour. During that show, Kendrick is exacting, to the point where even his hand motions and blinks feel preplanned – done in an effort, I believe, to further the album’s construction as musical theater. Here, Tyler borrows some of that same precision, not to evoke another medium, but for a more self-reflective purpose. Much like the mask he wears, we can see this as Tyler finding rigidity in self-expression, balancing tender, loving, and vulnerable tracks with all-out brashness and knee-jerk shying away from such vulnerability.
Something needs to change in order for there to be real personal growth.
Chapter 2: Revelation
After this section, a walkway extends down from the banisters; Tyler is about to walk out to the other, smaller central stage. Along the way, though, the rapper breaks into what I believe may be his best single song performance since his widely acclaimed and cult-like fan favorite performance of “New Magic Wand.”
“Sticky” is such a brilliantly strange song. Tyler brings all of its unbridled energy and drama to the fore in this live version. At one point, after the Lil Wayne verse, Tyler drops literal dollar bills over the walkway into the floor crowd underneath (tragically, I nabbed none).
Then comes the moment of truth. Tyler performs what I believe to be the album’s turning point, the pivotal “Take Your Mask Off.” The third verse is an astounding mirror of the artist, as it is on the album, where the first several minutes involve pointed critiques of some of society’s profligacy and unruly, now Tyler has forced himself to turn the attention inwards to find growth. Included in these words are notes of the accidental pregnancy, the paranoia, the confusion of purpose, and other themes hiding dormant in the album’s first half. And yes, you guessed it, after such articulation, Tyler literally “takes his mask off.”
It comes as a revelation, a miraculous discovery not borne from mercuriality (Tyler can be accused of many things, but never inauthenticity), but one from the fear of articulation of his more personal, vulnerable moments. In one of the Chromakopia listening events, Tyler said, “This is the first album where everything I said is true. ...It’s so honest that I think I had to wear a mask of my own face to get some of that shit out.”
We have our answer to thesis question number one, how to find the light. Takeoff your mask and realize you have it in you already.
This second section of the show also begs the other of those central questions: what is the role of the artist and audience? How much should one know about the other? What benefits does true openness and honesty from a rapper bring to a listener?
I believe the concert’s third and fourth acts answer exactly that.
Chapter 3: Freedom from the Past
Tyler now walks into center stage a freed man, and after a heady recitation of the gloomy “Tomorrow,” he must leave the show for a quick costume change. The background now is a disheveled home, reminiscent of the backdrop to his last tour, Call Me If You Get Lost. Notice that, on that album’s travel narrative, the home represented both a jumping off point and a conclusion, a literal fulfillment of the self-discovery and pure fun that is unavoidably inherent when “getting lost.” Tyler got lost and rediscovered his own home, his own self. Now, where once there was a safe haven, there is now the threat of new exploration, of the unfortunate treacheries that all who have taken real, honest reflections of both past and present know await them. The home is now dilapidated, and a little bit scary – much like the self.
Before he leaves, though, Tyler sifts through a collection of vinyl on stage until he comes across Igor. In the center of the home, its walls now broken down (literally and metaphorically) to reveal its owner, sits a couch, a keyboard, and in the very center, a record player that will guide us through this third act. He places the Igor vinyl on top, and the undulating and gripping synth that starts “Igor’s Theme” begins. Tyler leaves, only to re-emerge at the drop without his army garb and now dressed more casually: a white shirt, hat, pleated pants, and signature Le Fleur Converses – an outfit more along the lines of what we have come to expect to see Tyler sport casually these days. Now he resumes his conversational performance style; he calls out and signs happy birthday to a fan wearing the “Birthday Bitch” costume from Odd Future’s Loiter Squad days, speaks at some length about his gratitude and excitement for being there, compliments a fan dressed as Igor. It is a return to form, earned because he has taken off his mask.
The vinyl collection is our narrative centerpiece now; there are several records not in Tyler’s catalog here on stage with him, and Tyler takes special time to shout out his favorites. “These are the threads of my blanket,” he says, “and I am so fucking happy I get to share them with you.” Indeed, these are the intimate parts of who Tyler Okonma is, shared on stage in front of adoring and entirely unknown fans. There are Innervisions, In Search Of…, Stankonia, Baduizm, amongst others, each with clear lineages to the Tyler albums their mention precedes. He goes through selected hits from Igor, then onto Wolf, even Goblin gets some play, and Call Me If You Get Lost, until Flower Boy takes us back over the bridge and to the mainstage.
Important to note, though, is that the CMIFYGL selections are mostly from the deluxe, the Estate Sale, performed in their entirety much for the first time. I was particularly struck by the performance of “Sorry Not Sorry.” After so much time spent on his past, combing over his hits and his decisions, Tyler lies on the couch, lamenting on his most outwardly apologetic (yet, decidedly self-assured) song to date at the time of its release. He is entirely offering himself to the world – we are, in a somewhat literal sense, given the stage design, in his living room. We are part of his life, this tortured and yet beautiful thing, as is the fabric of any blanket. This, I believe, is the secondary thesis of the tour and the album – the artist owes the audience the type of honesty and cutthroat vulnerability displayed on Chromakopia and Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers precisely because it is a reminder that these are not superheroes, but people, just like us. Whether that makes a listener realize they, too, can be heroic, or that everyone also has flaws and it is not just them who suffer, this is an incredibly salient message.
Chapter 4: Real Progress
An intermixing of Flower Boy and CMIFYGL brings us over the bridge and back to the mainstage with “Thought I Was Dead” off Chromakopia. Tyler raps emphatically its lyric “I’m tryna magic wand, I’m tryna poof” and other brags. Then he elects to cut the music about halfway through the song – “Nah, y’all not hearing me” – and goes a cappella, overly annunciating and passionately pouring into each syllable. The second verse hits harder this time – he has everything a person could want, and yet he’s still filled with such hate, such pain, such dissatisfaction with the world and himself. It is because he has yet to reach the album and tour’s emotional climax, and yet to truly discover what gives Tyler his light outside of the mask.
Enter the fluttering piano of “Like Him,” and we are thrown almost unexpectedly into the most emotional song yet. Here, Tyler finally deals openly with the pains of his absentee father’s impact, his undeniable resemblance to a man who has had such inescapable influence on him, yet whom he has never met. There is tenderness in this embrace between him and the album’s narrator, his mother, as she apologizes for the father’s disappearance. “It was my fault,” she says, “he always wanted to be there for you.” Tyler forgives her and himself for this father-shaped hole in their lives. At least they had each other, and now the pyrotechnics take a tender turn, showering the stage in beautifully twinkling sparks.
“See You Again,” Tyler’s most-streamed song, follows this moment of passion. And indeed, its meaning from the title should not be lost – maybe he will see his father (again), maybe he will see his mother again, and, as he apologizes for on “Sorry Not Sorry,” maybe he will spend more time with his family and forgo this never-ending pursuit of some unknown utopia. Maybe he will, ultimately, see himself as the light.
“New Magic Wand” fills sadness with righteous anger. Now, as promised on “Thought I Was Dead,” Tyler is really “tryna magic wand.” But, given the context, the lover at the center of Igor is now replaced with a new central antagonist – Tyler’s father. He is ‘killing’ the image of his father, at least the one that kept him dissatisfied with himself and escaping the light inside. This is the path through hell taken in Dante’s Inferno to reach Paradise. This is the burning fire at the pit of your stomach ignited by injustice, and its purging is essential to any therapeutic reckoning with yourself.
Now, and for real this time, he has taken his mask off. Tyler sees the light.
The hypnotic green that has so far permeated is finally replaced in the set’s next song, “Balloon,” with the uplifting, goofy, and contagious colors of a circus. As Dissect Podcast’s Cole Cushna so eloquently tweeted (LINK), after the whirlwind of self-reflection, “those opening chords feel that much warmer, in the same way laughter does after a good cry.” We have won alongside him, and we can feel it. We can feel the light inside, thank you very much, St. Chroma.
Tyler has successfully journeyed from darkness to light, to an understanding of his true being and purpose because of an honest reflection on himself. We can mirror this journey – we too can find our light inside by acknowledging its existence, stripping ourselves of our masks, and fighting underlying demons to free ourselves into happiness. We are lighter because we have seen the light. At the end, we get Balloons.
But Tyler is no selfish storyteller. He closes with “I Hope You Find Your Way Home,” which hopes to instill a similar journey to lightness in the audience. This is why an artist must share themselves purely with the audience – like any good leader, we then unlock greater truths of life and self along with them.
And, not found on the album, Tyler chants a new credo to the tune of the finale’s titular chant: “The light, it comes from within. The light, it comes from within.”
The rapper fades behind the curtains of the Chromakopia shipping containers, and the lights come up. The camera on the central screen turns on the audience, and I could wave at myself in its midst. We, the audience, are now the light.
You, the reader, are the light then, too.
May we do with it as much as Tyler has.
And, apparently, remember: Don’t Tap on the Glass.
