Tyler, Creator: Chromacopia

Tyler's mother guides him ChromacopiaEven if his voice notes often just summarize the song's content. The exception is the devastating “Like Him,” in which Tyler questions whether he'll end up like his estranged father, and his mother suggests the truth is more complicated. “He always wanted to be your father. … He's a good guy,” she tells him. This line is a major plot twist in Tyler, Creator's Lore: For more than a decade, he's blasted his father for being absent. “Daddy ain't your name, see 'fagot' fit a little better/Mama was only 20 years old when you ain't got no dick,” he rapped on 2013's “Answer.” In “Hey Jane,” this revelation, coupled with a pregnancy scare, illuminates why he is so concerned about parenthood. “Boy, you're selfish, that's why you're afraid to be a parent,” she admits on the self-diss track “Take Off Your Mask.” Few things are more humbling than seeing yourself in someone who, up to this point, has only been a villain to you.

Manila travel flexes were on Call me if you're lostBut on chromacopia, Blackness is a status symbol. Tyler is a Kendrick and Jay-Z fan—performing and rapping at this summer's Ken & Friends Juneteenth show. 4:44 instrumental in 2017—so he was bound to rap about white supremacy one day. Ironically, the man who once declared that he wrote the song “I Killed You” for “white kids with Negro friends who say the N-word.” The song begins as an interpolation of the children's short “Bus Wheels” but turns into an interrogation of Western beauty. Drums that sound like a djembe and intermittent horns wouldn't be out of place in a New Orleans street parade. Tyler, flute in hand like the Pied Piper, urges black people to embrace their ugliness, dark skin and other attributes the world tries to exclude: “You house, baby, they're motherfucking elephants.”

Black female rappers remind Tyler that there's more to music on 33 than uber-serious lyrics. “Give a fuk 'bout pronoun, I'm that nigga and that bitch,” he raps on album standout “Sticky,” featuring Gloryla and Sexy Red. Easy to beat; It seems he hired a live step team to record the background vocals. You can tell he enjoys being with girls and abstinence is destined to grip your hippocampus. Tyler is an amazing rapper when he wants to be, even on cartoony beats like “Balloons” and “Thought I Was Dead.” Just like “STUNTMAN” is on sale of property, “Rah Tah” channels the West Coast and Southern rap sound Tyler grew up with. “I'm a bona fide mouth seat, box muncher,” he says, making Munch sound like a position of authority.

for all ChromacopiaThe dying confession of your thirties ego, it's a brag, cherry bomb-True Hit Sounding Tracks: “Thought I'm Dead,” “Rah Tah,” “NOID” and “Sticky.” His past rejection is understandable. “The version of T that you knew was a memory,” he says in anticipation of the “Tomorrow” critique: “Who is that? You get too attached to the theory.” Not too long ago, the entire country and commonwealth feared Tyler because of his controversial lyrics. Then he started philosophizing and crooning about love and became a little more brand-friendly. Few people are as quick witted as him though. Fewer still have that contagious arrogance that makes people bow without rolling their eyes.