Tyler the Creator's Chromokopia: The World Tour

Within the last couple of years I’ve experienced a handful of concerts that I’ve considered to be great. The genres of music I listen to varies pretty decently, and the concerts I’ve been to reflect that as well. To list a few, I’ve seen Laufey, Kiss of Life, Cage the Elephant, Lamp, and Smino. All of these concerts, and the ones I failed to mention, were fun experiences in and out of themselves, but I’ve almost always have been left wanting more. 

For the past year I found Laufey’s concert, the Bewitched: The Goddess Tour, to be my favorite. I thought her performance was something unique that I had yet to come across throughout my experiences at live music shows, and the aesthetics of the show had matched the music she makes very well. As a fan of her music, this concert was more than satisfying and even brought me to teary eyes during her performance of Goddess. However, I knew one day I’d experience a better live artist performance. One where the show aesthetics wasn’t just an add-on to the live performance, but an entirely unique part of the artist’s musical expression. A performance that could only be done by that artist, for only their music, and elevate my thoughts on both them and their work entirely. Funnily enough, when I bought tickets for Tyler the Creator’s Chromokopia: The World Tour I ended up buying myself the opportunity to see an artist’s show that was exactly what I was looking for. 

My history with Tyler the Creator actually is a lot more mixed than what people would expect. I actually wasn’t a fan of his early work as I found it to be poorly executed, even if the visions for those projects were decently clear. His hard core fanbase were also groups of people I wouldn’t normally surround myself with at that time, so I strayed from being a fan of his for quite a while. However, when Igor was released I could no longer deny how much he had grown as an artist. From that point forward, I made sure to keep tabs on all his albums and singles that would be released, and I found great enjoyment from them. This did not provide me any positive thoughts when relistening to his older works, but I was glad to say that over recent years I became a bigger Tyler the Creator fan than I could’ve ever expected.

Not only was his musical artistry getting better throughout the years, but so were his music videos, public showcases, his fashion lines, and his ability to perform live. I actually had tried to see him perform live a couple of times during past tours, but the prices would always be ridiculous after rapid ticket selling due to his tightly knitted fanbase. Thankfully, I can now look back at those failed attempts with a smile as I think I chose the perfect one of his tours to finally pay the big bucks to go see. 

As stated earlier, I’ve been to many live shows with varying sizes, but I tend to find that hip hop performances tend to have the biggest variance in quality. Some of these shows are literally just the artist(s) moving around on stage while trying to perform their songs and engage with the audience, while others are more put together with smoother sequencing and aesthetics to match the tour theme. This variety has always led me to be a bit more hesitant to buy tickets to hip hop shows, but I knew that this one would be on the higher side of quality. I just didn’t expect it to be the highest quality show out of any I’ve been to, not just hip hop.

With the venue being Toyota Center Houston, the largest in the area that isn’t some sort of sports venue, I expected there to be some sort of scaling issue or avoidance of cost spending in the set of this tour, but when I walked in I immediately felt foolish for making that assumption. The main stage was huge, and had vertically moving walls that displayed the title for the tour in its iconic green and black color combination. Hanging in the air were enormous screens and some sort of bridge contraption that surely wouldn’t be used at any point during the concert. The headliner stage was very small however, and was strangely set up, but I found it excusable as it was just the headliner stage. Just being in the stadium had its own atmosphere, and it only got stronger as more people showed up. 

The headliners for this tour performed decently. They were nothing to write home about, but I’d like to mention I saw their performances as well. Paris Texas’ performance was a bit too convoluted and chaotic for my liking. Since they’re a duo with some hard hitting music, I knew it would be a bit rough, but throwing in their DJ just made it way too messy to get a proper feel for. I enjoy their music, but seeing them live may not be something I ever do again. Lil Yachty’s performance was pretty standard. He did a great job engaging with the audience, but I think the actual song choices he used were very strange. A fair bit of his performance was either songs he had a small feature on, songs that were considered hits, and other artists’ music. It was just a bit awkward to me, but I was never a huge fan of his to begin with. After these two performances wrapped up, all that was left to do was to wait for the main artist to arrive. 

As the walls rose and the marching of St. Chroma began, the audience and I burst into a roar. The rising of the walls revealed the massive light up stage that Tyler would be performing on, along with huge screens for people in the distant seats to see. All of this culminated in the out right energy that the atmosphere was radiating, and was topped when the main man himself appeared in his full Chromokopia costume. It was at that moment I knew this performance would be more than just him playing his songs, but rather it would be a thematic unraveling of his experience being Tyler the Creator. 

Part of the reason I enjoyed the album Chromokopia so much is because I think it could only exist at this point of Tyler the Creator’s musical career. It’s an album focused on self assessment, growth, reflection, and evolution. These thematics are so personal that performing them in any way that doesn’t reflect that would be inappropriate, and I think he understood that. The simple dances, lighting, and ways he performed the songs always matched the energy that was needed for the songs, but that was always expected. What wasn’t expected was the unveiling of the bridge contraption I mentioned earlier. As we reached the climax of the Chromokopia album, he walked onto that very bridge and kept performing until we completed Take Your Mask Off.

It’s so obvious with hindsight, but the bridge and the costume played perfectly into what he was trying to do with this performance. We were watching the self acceptance after self analysis that occurred in the album visually through the performance. This only made my love for Chromokopia increase, and my enjoyment for the show increased exponentially. With that mask removal, we enter a new era of Tyler the Creator’s career. One that’s a mix of the old and the new, but only the best from both. He crossed that bridge to perform on the headline stage that was transformed before anyone had even noticed. 

I would consider this act 2 of 3 of this story performance. This act we got to go through the previous discography of the artist after he changed into clothes that were more styled as the everyday look we see him in. It was a lot more jestful and audience engaging than the other two parts which made sure that this show wasn’t just him performing his songs. Afterall, part of why people love Tyler the Creator so much is because he’s seemingly a hilarious guy when he’s not doing what he does best. This section of Chromokopia: The World Tour was refreshing while making me a bit fonder of the old gems that he has in his discography. Although act 2 was simpler than act 1, it felt like a good detour to remind us that there’s always good to be found in the past no matter how rough it was. With the act coming to a close, the bridge once again fell down for Tyler to cross the sky to return to the main stage. 

Act 3 was as perfect as I could’ve imagined. We returned to the new era of Tyler the Creator, and everything in the show reflected that. There was a grandness to it to really show how great it is to be able to follow this artist at the highest point of his career so far. The fireworks, lights, explosive dances, and song choices all tied it together to make sure the last section of the tour would produce the highest level of excitement possible. It was absolutely riveting to experience. 

After all these years I finally find myself thinking that Tyler the Creator is one of the only geniuses in the genre of hip hop that deserves the fame and success that he has, even if others came to that conclusion long ago. His ability to make everything he does artistically feel personal and emotionally expressive is something to awe. Never did I think I’d experience a concert where an artist was doing more than just performing their songs live with some sort of backdrop aesthetic to match, but he was able to bring his ability to artistically express himself into the actual concert itself.

Every bit of his performance felt calculated to fit into the story of the album and the concert. The details were what impressed me most. Changes of lighting, color coordination, costume changes, song choices, and stage designs were all done to make the audience engulfed in his art. The artistic expression at hand for this performance was otherworldly. My standard for large scale concerts has completely changed, and this has now easily become the best concert I’ve ever been to. I can do nothing but praise this concert. I recommend others to see Tyler the Creator live if there’s ever a chance because Chromokopia: The World Tour will likely be one of my best experiences this year.