TYLER THE CREATOR-CHROMAKOPIA

Unofficial European Pressing Amid mainstream rap's stagnant waters, Tyler, The Creator can feel like a glitch in the system. While contemporaries reckon against trap fatigue or labor for social media relevancy, the maverick rapper-producer exists on an island of his own, sailing over the horizon like an indifferent mystic every 2 years to deliver another singular LP. But where the recent IGOR and CMIYGL served up vibrant, neatly structured narratives, his seventh studio album, Chromakopia, proves a little harder to decipher -- this is Tyler at his most earnest, but also his most uneven. "Give a f*** about traditions, stop impressing the dead" runs searching opener "St. Chroma," and at first glance the album seems intent on breaking them: it's his first since 2011's Goblin without a divided track ten, the first to not feature his signature "ayo," and most importantly, the first to break his two-year release pattern since his 2009 debut, Bastard. "St. Chroma," Tyler's strongest intro to