Guess who has just dropped their eighth album? You might know him, you might love him! Did you guess it? Tyler the Creator! Tyler the Creator has just dropped his eighth album, and it is all over the internet. If you don’t know who Tyler the Creator is, he is a singer who is known for his boundary-pushing sound and electric artistry, making you able to feel his music in your soul. 

He started making music when he was 12, and he dropped his first album, Bastard, in 2009. Bastard gathered praise from publications and led to a record deal. Growing up, Tyler taught himself how to play the piano and designed his own album covers from existing albums. He lived with his mom in the Ladera Heights and Hawthorne Heights sections of L.A. His birth name is Tyler Okonma but his name “Tyler The Creator" came from his Myspace profile. Later in 2010 he released the track “Yonkers” right before releasing his first studio album Goblin in 2011. His albums Goblin and Bastard elicited controversy which caused Tyler to become banned from performing shows in 2015, but that didn’t stop people from praising his work and appearing on “end of the year” lists for best album. 

In 2011, Tyler the Creator later created a fashion label called Golf Wang which was inspired by skater culture, hip-hop and sneaker culture. Not much longer after that in 2012, he founded the yearly music festival Camp Flog Gnaw where he recently just performed his newest album, Chromakopia. He released his third album Wolf in 2013 that featured his musical heroes Erykah Badu and Pharell Williams. The follow up to Wolf also featured Williams and some other substantial artists such as Lil Wayne, Kanye West, Charlie Wilson, and SchoolBoy Q. After he went on a world tour for Cherry Bomb Tyler waited two years to release Flower Boy in 2017. This album had such of a widespread praise and acclaim that it reached #2 on the Billboard 200 and earned Tyler a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. Fun fact! Do you remember a childhood classic The Grinch and the song “You’re a Mean One Mr.Grinch”? Well, Tyler The Creator was the one who performed and produced that song’s popular new remake,! 

Tyler’s most recent album, Chromakopia, features guest appearances by Daniel Caesar, Doechii, GloRilla, LaToiya Williams, Lil Wayne, Childish Gambino, Solange, Lola Young, Santigold, Schoolboy Q, Sexyy Red, Thundercat, Baby Keem, Teezo Touchdown, and Playboi Carti. There are also physical releases of the album. Chromakopia was all written, produced, and arranged by Tyler The Creator himself. This album includes a variety of different genres such as hip-hop, jazz, and soul, reminiscent of Flower Boy and Igor. The album was very successful as it debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 and earned Tyler his third US number one album, along with it being his fastest selling album. Most of his songs on the album have some kind of deep meaning behind them and so does the album itself. He stated that its concept was inspired by his experience growing up in greater Los Angeles and the life lessons he learned that he later appreciated.

Coming from a person that already likes Tyler The Creator, I personally really liked this album. He puts certain songs together into such a sensational way and makes them actually mean something. If I had to pick my favorite song from the album, I would probably pick “Like Him” with Lola Young. The song captures his dissociation and distance from a father figure that he doesn’t want to emulate. Overall, I would rate this album a 9/10. I feel like everything did so well and it all just fit together. The features, the genres, the meanings, they all just came together as one.