CHROMAKOPIA is here (and it's really good)
01:30:42 Share

Welcome everyone to a special episode of Dissect. I'm your host Cole Kushner. Today we are doing a first impressions episode on Tyler, the creator's new album, Chromacopia. His eighth studio album, technically, he counts the Christmas album. It was released two days ago on Monday, October 28th. We are recording this on Wednesday, October 30th.

Just about two days after the album came out, I am joined by longtime friend of the show, Camden Ostrander. We are going to talk about Chromacopia, first impressions. We are going to talk about our favorite songs, our favorite moments, our favorite features. We're going to try to do some dissecting, some light dissections of some of the themes and symbolism that we've been talking about.

that I got totally wrong on the rollout pre-episode. But Cam, how are you doing? How are we feeling on this Chromacopia week? It is a beautiful week. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Cole. This is the best. We got a beautiful Monday, like for the first time ever in years. Yeah, I know. We're going to talk about the Monday rollout experience in a second.

Well, actually, let's just talk about it now, because what I wanted to start with was our first listening experience, because obviously a big deal about this album was that it was released on a Monday morning, not even a Sunday night, midnight release. And I was very interested to see how that was going to work personally, but also just generally speaking. So

Walk me through your first listen, how you listened and kind of your just first impressions on that first listen. We'll get into more detail about like nitty gritty stuff, but just give me your general impressions on the first listen.

I mean, first listen for me is Monday commute. Like I had to go to work. It was like almost too much in the morning. You know what I mean? Like the maximalism of the whole thing, everything going on. I extended my car ride. It's like my normal ride is like not quite long enough. So I extended that so I could get the whole thing in. Very worth it. I almost crashed.

the car because i like i because i couldn't believe what was happening we'll get to when that happens but like it was it was incredible yeah oh i think i i think i might i might i'm pretty sure you know yeah okay we'll get there how about you so i was originally planning on taking a walk and then my daughter woke up with strep throat okay and so i she stayed home sick from school so i wasn't able to take the solo walk that i was

planning on. So I ended up getting up early, like an hour earlier than I usually get up. And I just sat in my living room essentially with the window kind of, it was like the sunrise. So it had kind of a romantic setting. I just sat there listening with headphones on, taking it all in. Yeah. It was a lot on first listen. By the end of it, I wasn't quite sure what I felt, which I have since learned in my many years of listening to music

is usually a good sign. But I feel like I didn't quite get

the album on the first listen, it's you, those usually end up being my favorite albums where I'm just like, what was that exactly? I haven't really experienced anything quite like that. I will say that my expectations of what this album was going to be were not met. I mean, not in a bad or good way. It was just not what I was expecting. Given all the rollout elements. If you listened to my pre-release episode, I did a lot of speculation

I was absolutely wrong about pretty much everything because I, I had, I in no way was thinking that this was going to be as introspective and vulnerable and honest as it was considering the theatrics of the rollout, which felt very big and alive and colorful. And there's a lot of mysterious symbolism, which, you know, could apply in a different way than I, what I was expecting. So, um,

But once I got over my own, that hurdle that I put on the album, I was expecting this one thing and then you have to just let it be what it is and take it for what it is. On the second listen, I felt it really started to sink in. I really started to have some emotional moments with songs like Like Him or even Tomorrow or even some of Judge Judy.

And I was really feeling the album the second time through where the first listen was a little bit overwhelming and just trying to wrap my hands around it, right? For sure. So yeah, I guess let's start with just the sound of the album. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on just... Let's set aside themes and lyrics for now, but just the sonics of the album. How are you feeling? I mean, this was super cool to me. Like it felt...

Like he was throwing everything together sort of like I keep thinking like maximal almost like overstimulating Like to like there's so many things happening. So I love like the abundance of it I feel like that's to me. That's what the copia Copious like all that stuff. That's to me what the sound is in the title and it was cool like

he's doing a bunch of different things. I was like waiting for the hard song, waiting for him to try singing, like waiting for it on that first listen. And it was great. Cause I feel like he hit everything. Sometimes he did it all at once. Um, as far as the sounds go, I loved it. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Like there is a, a cohesiveness, not that his past albums haven't had cohesion. They, they certainly do. And it's, but I guess all the elements of like,

Flower Boy, all the recent albums, they all have a distinct identity and they all kind of leaned toward one direction, giving us like the classic Tyler sound, of course, throughout. But it was like, you know, Igor is going to lean a little bit more melodic, but there's still that raw musicality. Call Me If You Get Lost was definitely more hip hop leaning, but also had elements of dance and kind of that tropical kind of luxury vibe.

But I feel like this is his most, in terms of production, his most complete sounding record where it's not leaning one way or another. It's just, you're getting all of what he's great at. And he really just kind of gave us everything in one album. Does that make sense? Where like the other ones you can see like, okay, he's leaning just more in this world where this one, I feel like to your point about copious and abundance, he kind of just put it all together where it feels like,

very very seamless and cohesive and has a kind of distinct vision but there's no yeah it's just not leaning heavily in one direction which I really enjoyed it feels like it felt just very organic it's not like he was trying to

reach for a certain sound it was just kind of him just giving us who he is as an artist and as a producer right now you can see a bunch of like the recurring elements from like if you pick just things out of all the past ones like his mom's almost dj drama now and like there's all these things that he's bringing from all the past work if you could feel which was really nice yeah yeah which yeah to me has just been so interesting to follow his career um

just from a musicianship standpoint and just getting to experience him grow as a musician over the last decade where he comes in very raw and very young and he, especially, you know, in a wolf or a cherry bomb where he's really reaching for this sound and we get to hear him perfect it

especially since flower boy, right. Just really polish and polish and polish. And just, he's, there are some moments on this album where the musicianship is just so outstanding, not only in the harmony, um,

and the arrangements, but even in his keyboard playing, if he's playing those solos, there are multiple solos that are so impressive on this record. Not just in the technical proficiency of him, just doing runs, fast fills and runs, which it feels like he's just grown technically as a player, and that's great to hear, but just him really

polishing the musicianship of just his taste that has always been his strength and his taste and his skill seemingly working on equal ground, whereas I feel like in his past work,

the taste always outweighed the skill. And so I don't know if that, does that make sense? A little bit like he is coming into his own, like he's singing more himself. Like I feel like I feel it in that. I think I get what you're saying in that. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I probably listening a little bit more as a, as a musician myself and like kind of analyzing just his, just technical skill level and just being impressed with it getting better and better and him just getting even, we'll talk about a lot of the features, but,

He's just getting so good at using features. I wouldn't even call them features. He's using different artists as instruments, all a Kanye and just like, okay, who would be great? I need this sound. I need this texture. Who can I bring in to provide that texture? And he's just getting so good at nailing that. So I, musically, I just was, I've been very, very impressed every single listen. I'm finding new details, maybe more than ever,

He's always been a producer that really layers his songs with just a ton of detail and you just hear new things all the time. I'm hearing just the smallest of details where I'm just like, okay, that sound is only in the song once.

but it adds, you know, and who knows how long it takes them to find these little sounds and make them right and mix them in. That's something we talked about with Igor, like all the time, how he had built it that way with this, like he just had more time and he just, yeah, it's a lot. Right. Yeah. And the time, yeah, that's interesting because this was a three-year album, not a two-year album in terms of a release cadence. So he seems like he had an extra year to tinker on it and it feels like it showed to me. Yeah.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the themes. We're going to save our, I guess we'll call it... Dissection? Is that possible? Yeah, I don't think it's possible at this point. So up front here, I want to just be transparent about, I in no way feel like I've quote unquote figured this album out. I want to talk first about just the broader themes of the album.

And then at the end of the episode, we're going to kind of go through element by element and try to break down the title again, break down some of the rollout symbols. So that'll be at the end of the episode. But right now, just tell me about your first impressions about just the subject matter of the album. I mean, Tyler talking about getting old and being honest about it. I don't know if I was expecting or ready for that. Right. That was like...

time running out moving past but in an actual existential sense and not just this relationship running out of time like right that was blowing me away and still does like I that's it's just overwhelming in that sense as far as the subject I think he talked about that a little bit as far as just him getting older right there's the the concert clip already of him saying like this is him seeing he has gray he's getting a gray hair uh and stuff like that which

Really, I wasn't prepared as far as expectations go. I wasn't ready for that one. It's nice to see him talk directly about love in some different ways than I think we've seen before. Less coded or hidden. And also with masculinity, I think. Some of the symbols that we can see, I think one of the common elements is just being a man. Or engaging with masculinity a little bit differently. Because he's always been pretty outspoken.

about it and he's always played with it and but now it feels like he's almost analyzed it a bit or he's putting more of the analysis into the music if that makes any sense um yeah yeah yeah do you have any examples i i think we're gonna talk about like some of the symbols but like the dogs and the military and right in him listening to his mother

more like i you know and even him like uh voicing women on the project like he is taking on a voice of a woman and like doing that he is examining his masculinity a bit more more holistically than i think we've seen more maturely than we've seen before right yeah yeah yeah we'll definitely talk about the father thread um when we get to talking about like him but

Yeah, I just wanted to read a quote quickly for those that haven't seen the video clip, but essentially at the listening party in Inglewood on Sunday. He says this about the album. Essentially said he wanted to talk. It started as him wanting to talk about his childhood growing up in Hawthorne and giving us some details that we just don't know about his life growing up specifically. And he said that turned into something

Him just taking a bunch of things that his mom had told him as he was growing up and kind of letting those influence or inspire some of the subject matter of the songs. And then he says this quote, talking about what his mom told him. He said, I'm 33 and all of this stuff is like, oh, that's what she was talking about.

I'm not the guy who I was at 20. People are getting older, folks having kids, starting families, and all I have is a Ferrari. I got a gray hair on my chest. Life is lifing and I don't know. I just wanted to kind of write about stuff that I think about when I'm dolo. I'm happy you all got to experience it in my hometown. So yeah, it's very much someone approaching middle age,

you know, his last album was all about luxury, traveling, spending, eating. And it felt like time is being, is less of a luxury to him now and him realizing that,

time is our only luxury maybe in some sense. And just really, yeah, I mean, it is kind of a classic existential, he's not midlife, but in the classical sense, but it feels like he, you know, when you grow older, you just don't have like the decisions or the lack of decisions start to weigh a little bit more heavy. So when you're thinking about, should I have kids or not? It's like when you're 25, that's a different,

question than when you're 33. There's just a little more weight to that consideration. It just feels like he was taking a pause and just really reflecting on where he is and where he wants to be and where he's going. We'll talk a little bit more about that as it pertains to the idea of light, I think is the main motif of the album. Obviously starts and ends with this idea of light, how to preserve your light.

And to me, that kind of meant, at least at this point, it feels like his mom says, don't dim your light for anyone. And there's a purity of your own light when you're a child. And I feel like as you get older, there's, and this is something I often think about is how to preserve light.

I don't think about it as light, but on the album, it's, it's, it's kind of, uh, it manifests as light as the essential kind of symbol. And how do you preserve your light as you age, as you maybe start making choices because you're a certain age and you should have, you feel like you should have kids or you're getting pressure to have kids. You should be at this point in your career and you're not. And, and you start to sacrifice maybe some of yourself because of,

certain pressures, whether it's familiar or societal. And it's like, how do you stay true to yourself as you age was kind of something I've been kind of thinking about actively as I'm listening and considering this album, which is a pretty powerful theme, right? I mean, it's something, and it goes into this idea of a mask and the roles that we're playing to appease

you know, whoever it may be. And yeah, how do you, how do you maintain who you are as you age? It's, it's a pretty powerful question. I feel like the album is asking, um,

true yeah yes i don't i mean like when i'm thinking about what the album's talk like as far as these themes i'm looking at it like this is like a couple years ahead of me it's like one of my feelings with this album is like oh this i gotta do that it's coming yeah i gotta do that soon in a minute so that makes a lot of sense i wonder too if that deals with the theme of paranoia coming up on the album

him like worried about protecting himself and like what he has versus what he could do still like him talking about like protecting himself is a big deal on this album or how he could or if he should be doing it to the extent that he has for so long.

all of those things. I think they, they work together. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's in terms of what he said about, you're kind of reflecting on his childhood and sharing a little bit more about that. I'm not sure how much that thread really came through in the end. Um, and it sounded like he, at least what he said about it, he kind of pivoted. It started as that. And then it kind of ended up being this other thing, but the paranoia of the album, I think he was trying to link it back to growing up and

In Hawthorne, there's a, I forgot on what song, there's a line where he says like something about growing up and people ask like, where are you from? Essentially like, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. And that paranoia kind of trans, like just never leaving him. Being a bit of him from because of where he is from. Yeah. That's like just something that's always been in him, a trauma he's always had to deal with sort of thing. Yeah. And that only kind of, yeah, exacerbating once he had more things to protect. Right. Yeah.

So yeah, it's not the album I was expecting. It was such a left turn for me in terms of the role. And maybe I just was looking, I was looking too much into the rollout. I know that now. Not that I regret it. It was very fun to do that. But yeah, the theatrics of the rollout just...

Yeah, it was a complete U-turn in terms of such a vulnerable album. And a vulnerable album throughout. On my first listens, one of the things I was thinking about was there's a version of this album where a lot of the more quote-unquote accessible songs are front-loaded and a song like Hey Jane, Hey Jane is buried towards the back, you know, and it gets the vulnerable stuff more towards the end.

But I mean, he gets pretty vulnerable almost within the first four songs. You get Hey Jane, and that kind of turns the album in this different direction. And then it kind of oscillates between almost one for one vulnerable song with a more bravado, upbeat, traditional rap song. There's a lot of the oscillation going on throughout the album, which I thought was cool and interesting in terms of just

Yeah, I think that he could have made a more commercially appealing album had he front-loaded it with songs like Sticky and Thought I Was Dead and Moon. Thought I Was Dead, yeah. All those being more upfront, starting with a lot of energy and letting it taper towards the end with the vulnerable stuff, but...

it was very clear he was trying to be very honest and that was kind of it seems like that was the main through line hey jane being like song five was the moment crazy that's the moment where it's like oh this was not this is not a tyler this was not a regular tyler structure this was not what i was expecting like that was the moment i was like what's what's this is very different like that yeah yeah

And then you get, and it's like, oh, wow. Like, is that the, you know, is that the kind of emotional gem of the album? And it's like, no. Nope, there's more. Because Judge Judy, if you understand what's going on in that song, I think, which is, I think one of his, I don't know if it's a fling or whatever you want to call it, somebody he was in a relationship with or whatever.

seemingly dies of cancer and is writing to him from beyond the grave which is very heavy when i realized i think that's what's going on did you catch that i thought it was like mental health but i did think that she passed right and like him talking about a relationship that seems real he's talked about this uh last night which is this is crazy that it's we have had no time he talked about this last night that like this is album everything he is saying is true yeah that

It's wild. Like I can see a Tyler in the past making up something like this. Right. But doesn't feel made up at all. Like, and that just hits totally differently. Like you. Yeah. Yeah. Knowing it's true. And then also him being able to craft. I mean, if we're talking about judge Judy to grab craft a song or an emotional musical palette that really delivers that message and a very impactful message.

you know, meaningful way. The marriage of, and something I should just say, because I might forget to say it later. His writing on this album is fucking exceptional. Lyrically, there are some lines, there is the storytelling. He's just getting so fluid and organic with his, not only his flow, but like just his lyricism. There's that, the opening line of Tomorrow where he says, my mother's hands don't look the same. You're a good boy.

My mother's hands don't look the same. These jet black strands are turning gray. Which is like poetic. That is a perfect line. And him delivering it in like a different voice than we've really heard from him before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're just on the first couple of listens. I was just, you know, Hey Jane is a hard song to execute. You could say you want to write a song about,

getting pregnant with someone and debating in the back and forth in that being a conversation that's a great concept to execute that concept is a totally different thing and he fucking nails it musically lyrically delivery like

The detail of emotion. It's like you're saying like everything's true. I believe him when we hear a song like Dear Jane. Some of those details you just can't write had you not felt those feelings and him able to articulate those feelings.

as powerfully as he is on this record. Just the lyricism alone, I was very impressed with multiple times. There's just certain lines. I actually want to pull up the opening line on...

The last verse of Saint Chroma. He says, I am just a box with the light of thunder in me. Oh, yeah. Like, are you kidding? The synesthesia in the line of it being of light and thunder instead of like...

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But saying he's just a box also. And that's, that's, that's a lot. That's, that's a crazy line in terms of like, that is a great line. And I, I'm just not used to hearing those kinds of lines come from Tyler in this way. And maybe just as consistently, he's always been a great lyricist, but yeah, there's just moments where I was just like, wow, the maturity and the experience all just kind of lining up on this album. Really impressive. Yeah.

Okay, so let's get into, or did you have anything else on themes that you wanted to hit at this point? We're going to hit them in the songs. I know we're going to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So let's, yeah, I did want to, I wanted to think of ways where we could talk specifically about certain songs and moments and not kind of letting this be a general discussion because on Dissect we try to get into the nitty gritty as much as we can. Caveat being we're only two days into this record. But I did ask you and I did the same exercise, which was to pick one song that kind of

was interesting the most interesting to you on you know day two and kind of just unpack a little bit of it so you picked thought i was dead yeah which i will have to say up front because i'm very curious this was probably my least favorite song on the album oh i did so when you when you picked this i was like okay great like sell me on it right me

So why thought I was dead? I mean, first off, it rattled my car. Like it just, it was bumped. Like, ooh, it hit really hard. Like it had been like a half single. And so I was kind of like expecting it, ready for it on that first listen. It's an extended, we got the full version now. And it just, it was bumping. I think it's really cool that it is Tyler's statement on the big three debate.

Everybody talked about who the big three are. Nobody was saying Tyler. So I think him saying they thought I was dead was him talking about why was I not named? Did you guys think I was dead? Like, I think to me, that's the framing of the title and the way he does it. He is also doing the bravado disrep in the Tyler way that makes sense in his mature state now. Like when I'm thinking about like the masculinity themes on the album,

he's dialed back his hatred so much in the last few years. He's not saying things wild, not hating wildly, but he is still waking up at five in the morning, hating and going to the tent and even hating. Like he's still doing it. But because the hatred is now like dialed,

It's realer. It hits a little harder, which is kind of crazy. I love that we get schoolboy Q and Santa Gold features. I think Santa Gold is used perfectly. I think schoolboy Q is used perfectly. I think that they both fit the thought I was dead idea perfectly.

because schoolboy like we know his return with blue lips this year has been awesome but we know we all thought he was like we thought that right right santa gold i think herself like she's had some troubles with this as well there's we have the mystery cardi feature of this song also have you heard right yeah so like it's on the it's on the vinyl it's on the vinyl yeah so we have that which is really sick and i just like the and also he's barring out t changed like the fit got dirty

So sick. Sick. And him talking directly about like hitting 30, losing youth, but still being able to go like this. I want to set myself up so I can do the same. Like I would like to be able to go into age and still be able to go as hard as he is. And that's what he's preserving. When we talk about like, what do you lose as you grow older and stuff? Like him preserving this spirit and energy within himself, his inner hater. Right. Oof.

This is lethal. You want to be able to hate until you're 60, Ken? I do. I want to be able to hate. Well, because it's not hating stupid. It's not hating like, oh, these kids these days, they don't know what they're doing. No. It's very real and thought through and it makes sense. Yeah. So it's dialed in. I love it. Okay. I got to call out one because there's one of my favorite moments on the album is on the song. And it's the...

So the song kind of builds up for the first like 30 seconds. And then when the beat kick, well, just before the beat kicks in, there's that like trumpet blast where it's like, like really crazy. You know what I'm talking about? Holy shit.

But it's just like such, cause you hear it a little bit of trumpet before kind of playing in the background, but it's just one of those moments that only happens once. And it's like,

it's, it functions as, you know, like a drum fill or something that then leads to the, the beat kicking in, but it's just, it's just the most random, but awesome, but awesome little detail. Okay. That sells me on it. I guess my only, my only thing, I just don't really, at this moment, don't really like the chorus.

Cause I love the verses. I love, I love the, the beat. I like the song. This is like, it's my least favorite and a great album. So it's not like I'm, I'm definitely not like hating on it. Right. But brilliant. Um, my song is,

It was almost like him, but I think we're going to talk about that song enough probably. Probably, yeah. So one of the standout tracks on, I guess, probably second listen, even first listen, was Take Your Mask Off. So...

Intriguing thematically, right? Because he is wearing a mask on the cover. It's part of the character. So I was definitely just very curious of what the mask would mean. So this one kind of just

kind of just explains the concept pretty clearly and i should caveat this with him saying at last night's atlanta show he said i think i wore mask on the album because that's the only way that i could be this honest and vulnerable he called the mess a mask of his face right oh did he specifically say of his face i think yeah mask of my face

Really? Like, that's the phrase. Yeah. I'm going to pull it up. Because we've been talking about what that mask was. I know we've had this conversation, but, like, I think he was saying that I had to put on a mask of my face. I know this new album is a little different, but this is the first album where, like, everything I said is true. And I say that in the sense of it's no exaggeration. It's no, like, it's so...

honest that I think I had to wear a mask of my own face to get some of that shit out. Let's put a pin in that thought, but let me get to my little mini dissection of Take Your Mask Off. Structured just really cool. So we get up front, we get three stories about three different types of masks. We have the kind of a

suburban kid that ends up putting on a mask of bravado and machismo uh kind of this fake tough persona we get verse two which is calling out a preacher who is secretly gay molest children kind of your classic it's like very dark but you're but i mean that's like the cliche right that's the cliche mask when you think about it obviously it's very fucked up and dark um

Then we get the rich homemaker who settles down, has a rich husband, but is unhappy, lost her identity through motherhood and the marriage, all under this umbrella of the chorus, which is, I hope you find yourself, I hope you take your mask off. And one of the interesting things about the song is the sonics of it, because you could take what he's saying in the verses, and he does speak very sternly, I guess, or you could take it that way.

about these different characters, almost like you could potentially feel like he's judging them or looking down on them. But the chorus and just the overall warmth of the beat kind of lends this empathetic lens to these stories where it's like, okay, I'm going hard and I'm pointing out your mask.

But at the end of the day, this chorus, I hope you find yourself. I do actually wish that you can end up being your true self. You lost your true self somewhere along the way during, or, you know, due to different pressures or stresses. And I genuinely wish that you will find your way back home, find, take the mask off and find yourself again. So there's like a, a bit of, it's just like a weird dichotomy that I thought was really interesting and effective that,

but then we get to two minutes and ten seconds into the song keep that one with you with self we get this modulation into a bridge beautiful classic tyler

wonderful, gorgeous bridge section. And then the mom is introduced into the song for the first time. I think the mom's on every song in some way. Right, right, right. Even if it's just very short. But so we get the mom and she says, keep that shit 100 with you, with yourself. You don't have to put on no costume. You don't ever have to lie to kick it.

And so this sets up the fourth verse, which is Tyler going harder on himself than he did on all three of those first three verses. And it's him looking in the mirror and just criticizing himself, which kind of, this is obviously like the mask off moment.

or one of the mask off moments of the album, which contrasts some of the more bravado of the album. The last third of the verses just hits really hard where he says, tell your spirit why you ain't feeling, you're feeling it's a rap in the booth.

How dare you try to ruin her marriage, claim you never wore a mask and how you don't get embarrassed. Which to me, like that is very interesting knowing Tyler's personality or at least like what he shows publicly, which is this kind of, yeah, you wouldn't think he's the type to get embarrassed. He's like kind of silly and goofy. And then he says, boy, you selfish as fuck. That's why you really scared, scared of being a parent.

And so I don't know, it just, there's a bunch of these lines where I'm just like, ouch, ouch. And just being totally brutally honest with himself. I just thought it's a, it's just a very, the structure of the song combined with the sonics of the song. It's not a, oh, and by the way, it's not a Drake diss. Like I got multiple questions about this. People were really thinking this was a Drake verse four was a Drake diss. The whole thing. I was like, uh,

Get that man out your mind. He's not, it doesn't matter. All right. Yeah. So a hundred percent, not a Drake disc. Um, because, and I, I think that's worth noting because I don't, we shouldn't diminish the impact of that verse, which I feel like is a standout moment on the album and conceptually feels really important to the album. Yeah. So that, that was my, my single song selection. I feel like I could have picked a ton of songs, but, um,

Again, we're only two days into the album. So next segment, we're going to move on to our Tyler tradition, which is sharing our favorite timestamps.

So if you follow Tyler on social media, you know that every album release, he likes to hear people get specific about particular by the second moments of a song, explain why you like that particular moment. He just this morning posted his thread on Twitter about his favorite moments and gave time codes and explanations why.

So Cam, we each picked out three of our favorite moments on the album. So Cam, why don't you kick it off with your first time code? I want to start. Okay. I'm going to go with I killed you at 216. This, okay. This is when I almost crashed my car. All right. When I listened to this the first time, look, Gambino comes on the song earlier. He starts at 130. He's in the background. He's soft.

I couldn't believe it. I didn't know what I was having an out of body experience. I said, no, is it? Is that really? Finally, after my whole life of wanting this, what's happened? And it just kept building and building and building.

And Tyler's putting Gambino in there and he's singing in the back. Oh, and it's so pretty. But you're like, wait, just let him do something a little. Just let him do a little more. Just let him do a little more. And then we get here and the way Gambino sings beautiful. And just I could have I could have lost it all. I could have crashed. Oh, my God.

So let's preface this conversation with your, are you the world's biggest Gambino scholar? I always give you that. Look, I'm going to give you that title. That's what you say. Nobody's taking it. Nobody's taking that from me. Nobody else is saying that about themselves or having that said. Yeah. And okay. Then also, can you give a little context about their relationship over the years? Yeah. So, okay. So Tyler, the creator childish Gambino to my favorite artists ever. They have been like,

They've just been like parallel tracks, I think, in pop culture for so many years. And they were kind of aware of it. Like they know that each other, they were both occupying similar spaces. A lot of people who are fans of one are fans of the other.

But they weren't really like linking up. There is a super early Donald Glover blog where he's like, I met Tyler. He's crazy. Like and he's like talking about meeting him for the first time and the odd future guys and being like, man, they're really cool. But I'm not quite like that. Right. So they had like a just parallel tracks.

Okay. There's a little bit of weirdness between them because they were running in the same circles doing all that. Like there's gotta be like, they know they're there. Right. Right. Yeah. It's a few years before they start talking about how good each other is. Like, um, Tyler didn't say anything until because the internet, when he loved to earn, like he freaked out because he loved the song earn. And like, that was the first time he had said anything.

um but it's been years of them just kind of operating in the same space parallel tracks but not really getting together unless you count an episode of the regular show where they were like cartoons they have like cartoons and they're doing like a battle rap right so it's just like we it's just a weird space and i'm like why are they not holding hands um right and now they're holding hands and it's pretty great this whole year like they did um tyler performed coachella he

He brought Gambino out. Gambino on Bando Stone says, you know, I'm allergic to the drama. You saw me and Tyler. Like they've been getting together. Tyler really talked a lot about Atlanta when Atlanta was finishing up its run. So they've been talking about each other. They've been working together. And we just got Tyler, the creator and Tyler Gambino on a song. One. It's wild. Yeah. It's wild that it,

Took this long. Was there ever friction between them or not really? I guess the friction was probably just like unspoken and just like the, I guess they, I don't know. Like when you know somebody's doing kind of the same thing as you, like they're both doing very similar polymath. Like, you know, so I think it was just that. Okay. Yeah. That's what I couldn't believe it. This happened and I like, yeah. Yeah.

uh okay so i'll pivot to my first time code i'm gonna save like him for a second because i'm not quite ready for that um so let's go with i hope you find your way home the end of the album for the record i'll say i've been trying to figure out the album loop have you have you done the album loop yet what do you mean like playing it have you repeatedly the last song going back into the first song and how that

It's very seamless. And I was like, oh, is there something there in terms of like, I guess like some...

coded symbolism or something going on with the chords because it feels the experience of it is very smooth and seamless like you don't feel like the album started over right right one of the thoughts i was like oh does it does it kind of begin with the end because what is what are what his mom says in the very beginning moments of the album is kind of the album right um and it would feel like an appropriate ending so that's one thought i had where it's like oh that's kind of interesting where it's like

what she says at the beginning. And if you're playing in a loop ties directly into what she says at the very end of the album. So it is held together thematically as a loop. If there's anything beyond it, just feeling intentional and smooth. I'm working on it. I'll definitely like make a video on, on it. If there's something revelatory there. People are waiting. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've, I think I have something, uh, musical, but I'll, I'll save it for when I'm sure. Okay. Sweet. Um, but I am working on that, but,

The section that I wanted to point out for this exercise is at three minutes and eight seconds.

So good. Yeah. It's so good. Okay. I love this moment because the, the album could have ended with the mom saying crying and then saying, keep shining. But then we get this whole extra section after that moment. And what does he do to keep shining? It's all musical at that point. Like we don't hear anything else from Tyler at this, except if you count chroma copia Chan at the very end, but essentially he shines by playing this beautiful, uh,

very skilled uh very very uh musically articulate solo over these beautiful chords and it's just like oh this is like it feels like tyler and his element it feels like

If you're going to ask Tyler to shine, like this is it. It's, it's the musical expression. It's him figuring all of this out. It's him getting better as a musician to be able to execute a moment like this. I just feel like this moment, or just for me, it's like one you can really point to as a, like a crystallization of his maturation as a musician, as an artist, um,

as a maturing person. And it's just so impactful the way it's done. And to end the album on that note, the back-to-back of the mom crying, being proud, me as a parent, I feel that moment probably a little bit extra. And then we get the thematic kind of conceptual land of Keep Shining, which kind of ties a nice bow on the whole album. Right.

And then to bring it home with this gorgeous solo, just fucking for me, that, that kind of moment just really just got me going.

it's something I look forward to every time as I'm approaching the end of the album. Just beautifully executed, like perfect execution of that moment. That's beautiful. No, it's so beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I do love it. Okay. The next moment then I want to talk about is Thought I Was Dead. We're going back to it. Okay. I want to go to like the last time a bit of the chorus is played at 311. Okay.

Alright, I was wrong that song is awesome. The thing I love about this, I mean besides how he ends talking directly to Trav, which is really cool, but that's not the moment. The moment

Here is when he adds the yo-ho to the I don't want to be down. Yeah, like yeah Yeah, that's swing in that. Yeah Like I wish yeah, I wish that was through the whole song but it's just at the end But when it you can't you can't hold that back now I was gonna say that I love it that it's only at the end because that's what he's so great at is just finding the that little extra pocket that little extra like incredible

Yeah, just that little more sauce on the core idea and just getting the most, extracting the most out of a single idea. I didn't notice that until just now, so that's a great detail. Like live, I know it.

I know it's going to be good. Like that's it. That's what I know. Yeah. That's the one. Okay. Let me get into then tomorrow. It's kind of similar to my first, my first call out, but it's two 13 into tomorrow. Let's hear it first. And we'll talk about it. Yeah.

So again, yeah, it's a bit similar to my first call out, but it's just this contrast between these beautiful strings swelling up with the vocals of the chorus and it just kind of breaking in this way that you just don't really expect where it goes. It just all of a sudden tapers off into these arpeggiated guitar chords and a synth solo on top.

And then, but then you get the dog barks and the weird chance, which is just okay. Like who else is going to put a dog bark during this beautiful section? And it's just, yeah, it's just one of those particularly like the solo and the guitar are great, but it's, it's the way that it gets into that. And the contrast with that, just the lushness of the strings and the swell of all these layered voices, um,

just creating like a, just a very beautiful, beautiful moment. And it's like, when I'm talking about his maturation as a musician, those are the kinds of moments that I'm talking about. It's like Tyler of even like four years ago, can't do that. Um, doesn't make those kinds of moments. And it's like, those kinds of moments are all over this thing. So, um,

that's that's one i want to call out but we're avoiding the inevitable here we know where we're going yeah okay so once you are actually let's see who has so we have a few here and i think we both called out different sections and mine is first in the song so maybe let's try to go through it like go through it in the sections and yeah in a kind of linear fashion so i'll go first with mine i technically have two so we'll do me in the middle

Yeah. All right, sweet. So Like Him is, I think, a standout track in this. If this is Tyler's most vulnerable, honest album, it feels like Like Him is the pinnacle of that expression. From start to finish, I'm sure everyone listening knows, but essentially it's him confronting Tyler

His feelings about his father, kind of who has been absent in his life. We've heard him talk about his father throughout his discography, maybe most famously on Answer, right? Off of Wolf. Always felt like there was some tension there, to say the least, right? And...

this, well, we'll talk about the end of the song, but essentially this song is like confronting some of that. And, you know, I think we both grew up with fathers. That's true, right? Yeah. So I think there's a, based on the comments and specifically the one that Tyler shared from a listener on his Instagram, um,

It feels like there's a layer to the song that probably you and I aren't going to be able to really feel. But I'm getting the sense that, especially for those that might have not grown up with a father, this is really hitting home in a way that maybe other songs haven't really articulated this clearly. So let's get into my first moment, which is at 1 minute and 33 seconds. 1 minute.

Okay, so the song starts with, yeah, it's great. The song starts, but this is, it's kind of the same. I'm finding a thread with all my selections here though, which is the song begins, and I remember thinking like this on my first listen of this song.

It's just Tyler at the piano and the piano feels like it's mic'd as if it's just like in his living room or something. And it's like a very intimate, close, personal song. And he's singing in a voice that we just don't hear him singing often. Mm-hmm.

It's very transparent. And so I remember wondering, where is this song going to go? And then the moment that we just played is when it breaks from that original intimate texture into the fully fleshed out version. There's a drum fill. There's this kind of swell that happens. And you think it's going to just kind of explode into your classic big kind of bombastic version ballad thing, right?

But then it doesn't. Then it just kind of just sinks into this groove that I definitely did not expect at all. And it's this like 6/8 feel. There's no more piano. There's just the synthesizer. And then we get this really reverbed out guitar lead, which is just-- the groove itself is just spectacular. And it adds this like contemplative kind of feeling to it. And then we also hear a theremin.

which is interesting because the song is like, the chorus is I'm chasing a ghost. And a theremin is a, is an instrument that we traditionally play.

think about uh it's often used to kind of portray the supernatural be it ufos or ghosts it's the is it the handy hand airway you control it with your hand and it's a yeah frequency like it has a very distinct um frequency oh that's uh or timbre that's so cool so that feels intentional right yeah wait a minute chasing a ghost so cool detail there right yeah

But even beyond that kind of Easter egg, I feel like just the groove is so cool. But do you want to go to now your section? Yeah, we're going to skip a little bit ahead. We're going to get to about like three minutes, three minutes, three minutes, two seconds, and run through 312. Okay. Okay, so the huh from Baby Keem.

I don't know if it's officially credited yet or not. I don't care. That's baby Keem or I'm not who I am. Like that's baby. The huh is I think in the background a little bit before like 15 seconds earlier. I don't care. It doesn't matter. Huh? Like that, like that breath, that moment is incredible. Cause then I'm like, is baby Keem about to show up? No, it's about to get into another beautiful intersection. Taking the song and like another place.

Only Tyler would do that. Like only Tyler would do that. I know that's yeah. It's incredible. And then you get the dog barks over that what we just heard as well. Yeah I don't know what to think about the baby Keem huh? I wonder if it's baby Keem dealing with similar experiences I think but this is off me just trying to remember Melodic Blue. Yeah. But oh my god.

That was kind of like if there is any, if it's just not an aesthetic thing. Because it works. It works for me. It's kind of funny. Yeah, right. But it does work. Like before I knew it was Baby Keem and I was just not really thinking about that. Like it works. But yeah, I did, I had the same thought where it's like, yeah, Baby Keem also, I'm

pretty sure grew up without a father. I was waiting for him to come on and do a verse. I'm not going to lie. My first time writing the song, I was like, but that was Baby Keem. When's he going to... Okay, do you think that's a... Is that a sample or did Baby Keem come in the studio to do... I hope he came in the studio. I hope...

Tyler's like, I gotta get, I need you on this. But I need you to come in right now. What are you? Stop what you're doing. This is a very important feature right now. Okay. So my next moment is at four minutes, four minutes and 20 seconds. It was my fault. Not yours. Not his. It was my fault. I'm sorry. You know,

It was about not him because he always wanted to be there for you. And I'm sorry I was young, but he's always wanted to be a father to you. So I fucked up. Jesus Christ. Okay. Okay. Let me just talk about it musically because obviously it's maybe the emotional climax of the entire album that moment. But though, again, it's like I want to really emphasize that.

how he is nailing these moments musically to make them as impactful. Because it's one thing to have the concept. It's one thing to have this tape of your mom taking her mask off, right? This is her mask off moment if there ever is fucking one, right? And so it's like, okay, you have the tape, you have this song. How do I incorporate this into the song in a way that is going to be as effective as possible?

And he does it because it's like you have this huge, you think the song's ending. It's on kind of ends, right? Like a huge climax. There's a really great bass solo. I don't know who's playing bass, but maybe Thundercat on this song. And it's just like, it's your classic bombastic kind of ending to a ballad like this.

And then it just cuts out. And then right away, you get those dong, kind of ominous like dong tom or whatever it is. And then we get the tape and then the synth comes back in and it's just like

Just musically, it's so effective to me. And then we get the sentiment of what's said, which is her admitting essentially that she was the one that distanced the father, that the father did want to be there for him, and then asking Tyler for forgiveness, which is, I mean, there's nothing really I could say. Yeah, I couldn't believe it. Yeah.

It's extremely heavy, extremely vulnerable to put it on there. I mean, vulnerable for his mom to allow it on there. Him, again, her saying that she was young, her now aging. I think of the opening line of Tomorrow. My mom's hands don't look the same. Living with regrets and confronting all these things, taking the mask off. So powerful. We're all getting older every second, right?

The call of getting older as a call to be honest and then actually doing it. Yeah. How many of us actually do what we should? How many of us actually? Yeah. My God. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah. Jesus. I just think, again, this is just, it's so special being able to witness. Because, I mean, I also think of like Tyler's fan base being probably the bulk of it more or less his age, you know, and growing with him.

And experiencing these same things and having someone like Tyler, who was like a prankster and a troll came in as a, you know what I mean? And, and seeing like someone like him,

especially mature right yes right and in the public eye and to do it this grace gracefully and to be a model in a lot of ways i think it's just his his trajectory is just so powerful to me for him to hit this honesty at this moment yeah yeah it's crazy it's like it's admirable it's really cool

Okay. We did it. Yeah. Let's take a quick break from that. And when we come back, we'll lighten it up. We're going to share our favorite three song sequence of the album. We're going to share our favorite feature and then we're going to get into some light dissections.

All right, we are back. It is time now for our favorite three song sequence. Tyler is excellent at sequencing. There's definitely multiple times on the project where the end of one song seamlessly goes into the next. I think of, what is it? Ratata? Is that how you say it? Ratata. Ratata. The Pokemon. That's like the...

That's the obvious one where he says, you guys are weird and I'm paranoid. And then it goes in the song Paranoid. But there's more than... That's the most obvious one. But there's tons of those little...

sequencing was very intentional on the album. So I'm curious, what was your favorite stretch of the album? So I can go with, like, I could go with a stretch towards the end, or I could go with the one that's for me right now that I still can't believe exists. I'm going back to the Gambino, whatever. I'm going to the, I'm calling it the Childish Gambino Suite.

Okay. I killed you into Judge Judy. And then I get to play Sticky. I get Sticky. Ha ha. That's, yeah, that sequence. Yeah. Oh, it's so sick. Okay. So, okay. Put to rest that Judge Judy features Gambino and not Frank Ocean. Okay. So, we need to talk about this. So, it is Gambino. I think Tyler just tweeted that it was like that he loves the way Donald was having his notes. Yeah, he confirmed it. Going with the instrumental. Yeah.

Here's the thing that I haven't seen people talk about yet that I like was the first thing that I thought. Judge Judy, obviously Tyler has his whole concept with it. Judge Judy is a very important symbol for childish Gambino because it's how he ends the show Atlanta. Darius in the show Atlanta is experiencing like simulation theory. So was the entire show a simulation theory?

The whole... Like, the thesis of the end, the last episode is, like, if Judge Judy on TV has a large derriere or not tells you whether or not the world is real or it's the fake simulation. And so, like, the end of the show is Darius smiling while watching Judge Judy and you don't know as the audience whether or not it was fat. And so...

Tyler like loved the end of Atlanta. He talked about the end of Atlanta when it came out He was promote like he thought it was so great He said he had a lot of nice things to say so for him to throw Gambino on to the song called Judge Judy I'm not gonna pretend like I know everything that it means but there is that call like that is interesting I wonder if he just put Gambino on it because it's funny that the judge duty thing like cuz I I don't know because the feature is so small and

But I love it. I can't not point it out. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I also need to point out that both Gambino and Tyler sampled I Want to Rock by Luke the Don't Stop, that sample. Yeah, yeah. Because he did that on Bando, right? Yeah, and their 2024 albums, they're both sampling the same song. Right. How'd that happen, guys? I think it's really cool. And Sticky is very fun. I really like Glowrilla. I think it's incredible. Glowrilla, Sexy Red, Lil Wayne, Tyler.

all working on it. Like that one goes, that's a hit. That's really cool. Yeah. I really liked that. And I love that how short each verse is. And I love that Tyler just doesn't have one. He kind of, cause one of my gripes with posse cuts, not a gripe, but like whoever's song it is, quote unquote, it never feels like their song.

Sticky still feels like Tyler song, even though there's three features on it because he, he, there's so many parts. He has that whole outro is him, but yeah, I think he has, he has two or three verses on it or hard to call them versus cause they're so short. But anyways, it's just, it was strategically very cool the way that he did that. Having three guests on it, but also making it feel still like a Tyler song. Yeah. And so not feeling like this odd thing out of outside of the project. Okay.

Okay, so I'm going to go Noid, Darling Eye, Hey Jane as my current three song sequence. I could easily go Like Him, Balloon, I Hope You Find Your Way Home. But we talked a lot about that. So Noid, I don't want to discredit Noid. Noid's fucking awesome. It is sick. I played it too much. I tried so hard not to play it too much before the album came out, but it's kind of sticking out of the album for me.

because I've heard it more than the other songs. So I'm like, you know what I mean? But that song is phenomenal. One of my favorite moments on the album is still the Ngozi family sample. We've just never heard anything like that in a Tyler song and it's impactful every single time it comes on. And then that going into Darling Eye,

That song is, we haven't talked about that song. One of my favorite songs on the album. Tizo is great on that song. The vibe is just so special. And then going into Hey Jane, which is a masterpiece of storytelling. And just so you get, you kind of get the whole project in that little three song run. You got to get all the elements. True. You know what I mean? If you're, you're trying to pick out that, you know, three, three song in the run that could explain the album. That was the one where I'm like, Oh, that kind of gives you a little bit of everything that's on this album.

But maybe the most impactful to me is the last stretch. That end. Lycan, balloon. I hope you find your way home is pretty incredible. And I got to call out the way balloon feels after the emotional intensity of lichen. Mm-hmm.

feels so good right you hear those little like true those bright little chords come in and like things get upbeat and he's talking about using this balloon to kind of as a metaphor for keep going higher and you know moving on or so you know what I mean like keeping it light like just true

The sequencing was very effective right there for me in terms of a mood switch into this more hopeful ending after a pretty intense emotional moment. I think that leads us straight into the features, right? Yeah. Let me just go into my favorite feature then. Pretty obvious pick for me. I'm going Dochi.

On Balloon. I was so excited that when I first heard her come on, I was like, yes. Because she had just gotten the cosign from Kendrick on Instagram. And then getting the cosign from Tyler here. I mean, Tyler attended her...

album release party so that was cool to see a couple months ago but then to get this kind of formal stamp that she's on the album with it you know it's not just like some vocals that you're like who is that it's like no she has a legit verse maybe the longest guest verse of the album oh maybe true maybe i don't know if school maybe school boy his is kind of short too i don't know because she has the full verse and then she gets a little extra like a little chorus yeah so

But I just love her energy. She's got great wordplay doing the cockpit. One of my favorite lines was, I need PETA for this pussy because PETA could be the animal rights group, which would make pussy the pussy cat play, but then PETA the bread. So we get that play as well, which is great. But then, okay, it sounds so silly coming from me. You're going to say it out loud.

I'm going to say it out loud. I air this bitch out like a queef. It's fucking incredible. When I first heard that, it was like literal spit take. I was like, what the fuck? It's so good. And she's calling back to what Tyler said, which is I air this bitch out like a balloon, which is what he says before. And the way she flips it is like so great. And I also love where she says, I'll spray your whole block with the floor.

Which is like super clever. It's just like replacing the gun with like his fragrance is just cool. And very cool that

She said that this was her most desired collaboration. So she nailed it. And if you haven't listened to Dochi's interview on dissect, go listen to it. It's the first artist interview that we did. I think it was a great conversation. So if you missed that, go, I'm going to use this opportunity to plug it. Okay. Are you just going to go back to Gambino? First off, I'm going to point out. It's so funny. Tyler was so scared of having children and then he has Dochi on his song. Okay. As if Dochi is not a Tyler child. Okay.

Then I'm going to wonder, hmm, maybe Baby Keem. Was it Baby? No. Yeah, I'm going to say it's Childish Gambino. I'm going to say that like the most. Your third time talking about it. I'm not even going to have to say anything. Do I have to say anything else? He says like one word on the album. This is a victory lap. You understand what this means, Cole? Okay, I got it.

All right. I'm trying to think of anyone other, other features that we should shout out though. T I love Tizo. Yeah. If you like that, if we're talking about Tyler's children, I mean, that's a hundred percent. One of them. True. Daniel Caesar obviously is all over this thing and seems like he was pretty important to the, it seems like he was just in the studio a lot with Tyler, but,

So that seems important to at least acknowledge. Yeah. Schoolboy was great. I mean, all the features. Oh, we should talk about like, okay. Why did, why did Tyler hide the features? So a couple of days before the album releases, he puts it, what does he tweet it? Or it says something, no features or he put it in his bio, no features.

And then when we get the track list, we open the album up on Spotify the day of. There's no features listed in the credits. That changes on Tuesday. I have a theory about why he did this. Oh, what do you think? Which is, I think in this kind of social media culture of album hype and speculation, the features always seem to override the actual album itself. People are like, oh, like...

It's going to be featuring Travis Scott or it's like, it's got a blah, blah, blah feature. And then it's like, but you're getting an entire album from this artist. Like be excited about the album. That's true. I get you're excited. Like someone's going to have a feature, but.

I always thought that was strange. And just knowing Tyler, I feel like it's like, okay, you guys are all going to get excited about all these features. I want you to experience this album without thinking about that. I want you to just experience it as a body of work where these artists are on the project, but don't let that distract you from...

just the totality of the experience of it, at least on day one. And then it makes perfect sense then that he reveals formally the features the day after. That's true. You buying that theory? No, for sure. Because the experience of almost crashing my car when hearing Chaz Gambino. Like, yeah, if you knew. If I knew, I'd be like, is it going to be a verse? Is he going to sing? I'd be worried about it. You would have been disappointed. I would have been disappointed. Yeah.

You're right. Damn. That's so good. That's true. Okay. Sick. Okay. Time for some light dissections. Caveat. We don't know anything. It's 48 hours. There's a lot to unpack. I'm excited about the notion of unpacking it over the next couple months, but we are going to return to some of the main elements of the rollout, some of the motifs that we've noticed on the album and just kind of see if we can better wrap our head around some of the concept stuff.

So let me start, let's just start again with the light. So he lays it out very clearly at the last verse of St. Chroma. He says, I am just a box with the light of thunder in me. Gratitude sits under the hubris that's on my sleeve, which that line tells so much about that, this oscillation between bravado and vulnerability on the album where it's like,

The outward me, there's hubris, there's ego, but underneath that is this gratitude. And I need to show that more. Then he says, mama said, I'm special. I was blowing shit up back at home in Chromacopia. So interesting that he names Chromacopia is a place back home. And right after he says, mama said, I'm special. I think referring to his childhood. So, so pin in that.

I don't like the way that this is looking. Mirror got me thinking about my bookend. I just need this time to figure myself out. Do I keep the light on or do I gracefully bow out? And that's the end of St. Chroma, the first song. So he's setting up the album as me figuring out myself, looking in the mirror, thinking about my bookend, meaning either the end of my career or the end of my life.

I don't think, do I keep the light on or do I gracefully bow out as like a suicidal? I don't read that as suicidal ideation. I took that more as like, yeah, theatrical, maybe more about like living under the spotlight. That's how I took it. Or even gracefully bowing out, meaning like, do I dim the light? Do I recede? Do I start compromising as I'm getting older? So that to me,

Kind of lays out the album. Was that your reading as well? I think so. Yeah. I think it serves as a thesis, right? I mean, we got second verse on the first song. Yeah. I mean, my English teacher brain is telling me that's the thesis, right? Like, sorry, but, but it kind of does seem like that's like the outline and blueprint. So if we're tying it to this idea of chroma, chromacopia, it, I mean, it makes sense that he would say back at home in chromacopia and,

And so one of the things that maybe I should just lay it out here is that the idea that Saint Chroma may actually be his mom and not the military character. Yeah, the military character has the horns. And they just put out a shirt that has it even emphasized that that face has horns. Right. So if that was the saint...

that would be like see this is what we mean with like there's so it's so yeah there's stuff to do there's unpacking yeah a saint is like someone the saint would follow you're you you devote to you express gratitude for you know there's obviously christian iconography there but if if if the mother is the the guiding light so to speak on the album

it would make sense that she is actually the saint and not the Tyler character. And if it's back home at Chromacopia and mama said, I'm special, meaning within this house that I grew up in was like this safe space because my mother was supportive and always encouraging me, giving me this advice that I'm only now understanding and really feels like the light of his world.

the house could be Chromacopia. Especially if his plan was to talk about maybe some of the rougher aspects of his upbringing and having a safe space and calling it Chromacopia where he was allowed to be himself. So that's kind of where my mind's going with that in terms of what is Chromacopia. But Chroma itself, like I talked about in the pre-release episode, there's a ton of definitions for it.

The base level of simplest explanation is that it just means color, but specifically it refers to a certain aspect of color. And one definition is it represents the quote purity of a color related to saturation with lower chroma being less pure or more washed out. Mm-hmm.

So if the central analogy is mom saying, don't dim your light for anyone and the temptation to dim your light as you get older, chromocopia, copia meaning abundance, seems to tie into this idea of still trying to burn pure, burn bright as you age and how you do that. Right. Seems-

Seems now with the album to, for me at this moment to be the most relevant explanation. You feeling that too? I buy that. It's just, there's so much, like, I feel like you're talking about this one forever. I know. Like that. And that's so exciting.

I need to see the live show. I need to see the stuff he does. I need to see what the heck is going on with the cargo bay things. Like, why do they have Chromacopia? Like, I need more. But this is so sick. Yeah. I had a thought about the cargo shipping containers. What's that? So, could that be cargo shipping container? Isn't that... Could you consider that baggage? Okay. You could consider baggage...

That does make sense. But he's blowing it up. So he's blowing up his- Confronting his baggage. Confronting his baggage, right? And then- That was kind of- That makes sense. Then the baggage is the shadowy men. Okay, the shadow- Okay, I have a thought for that. Okay, what's the shadowy men? The shadowy men, which, okay, if you look at the St. Chroma video, you see the Tyler character leading them. He's in the front of the line, but he is in line. Right.

And then he distances himself and starts to direct them into there. So if he's at once part of it and he is wearing a mask as they're all wearing kind of masks, I guess like they're- They're shrouded. Silhouetted face. Yeah, the silhouetted face. So if he's leading them into the cargo, okay, this is definitely maybe just re-reaching. But if he's leading in the cargo and then exploding it,

Could that just be like, it's violent, but it's also like symbolic of transformation. Could that be him kind of leading these people to confront their own baggage, to take off their mask, to access this light, this color? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know.

That's like really the only thing I like, why else? Or, okay. I should, we should also caveat this with like the rollout elements could just be a separate thing. Could just be loosely tied. Yeah. They just could look cool. Cause they do. Yeah. The character just look, could just look cool. I'm going to be so, I must be so mad at Tyler if that's the case though. Like, but you think about like Igor, it's like, did the Igor character, uh,

I love the character. I know, but did it really like relate to the album? I think how much did the blonde wig and the suit like illuminate the album? Like was it directly tied or was it like that just looks fucking cool. It was character. It was performance. It also just looked cool. We'll never know. We're never going to know.

Yeah. So it's like, as we're speculating, it's like that there's just a possibility that these world elements are just kind of aesthetic. Yeah. Okay. So a couple other things, military theme. The only thing I can think about for this was like the idea of going to war with yourself. Okay. I, other than that, I don't, I just don't know. Gotcha. For me, this is part of the crux of the masculinity thing.

But masculinity seems to touch so many of the motifs and the things we're talking about. Because to me, it's the dogs. It is the military aspect. Yeah, dog barking throughout the entire album, I should just say. Unlike him right after Baby Keem when the dog's barking. He's talking about his dad. I'm like, yeah, that type of thing. And then the mask. That is mask-ulinity. Like, what?

To me, the military stuff is all encompassing of like the masculinity that Tyler is sort of interrogating and engaging with, right? There's ideas of like order. There's ideas of aggression. There's ideas of just falling in line, violence. I also, one of the things that I thought was like such an achievement of the album and that is going to make it so rewarding to spend time with, how maximal the sounds are, how there's so much going on. He gets to holistically pack in

all the like semi stuff all the stuff that's kind of out exterior noise that we're constantly dealing with there are these stresses on him there is thoughts of war like combat conflict and just again it is masculinity aggression like that stuff is always making some type of noise in our head right that's what it feels like to me okay it might even just be like a feeling exacerbator

I don't know. Yeah. It's loaded. Okay. Yeah. And then like the devil horns, I just kind of have no clue about, to be honest. Okay. So...

I don't know if other people are also thought that I thought it was like the Gemini rights horns, which initially made me be interested because Steve, Steve, Steve Lacey album. Yeah. Because one thing that's also interesting is Tyler's taking influences and we're going to, we should do this. Tyler is taking influences from things that are happening right now. Like contemporary art is actually influencing Tyler's work. Like in the moment,

do you want to talk about Kendrick? Like, Oh, right. Yeah. We might as well. We need to. Right. Because he's getting inspired and he's actually doing it instead of everybody who like is getting inspired by stuff from 20 years ago. Right. Right. Yeah. He's not afraid to be inspired by his peers, which is feel definitely feels rare. And that's a masculinity thing too. Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. You don't want to be big dogged by your peers. Yeah. Right.

But yeah, I, when I was listening, especially like the second, third time, I was like, wow, this really reminds me of Mr. Morale in a lot of ways. And I was just like, am I just so immersed in this album right now? Wink, wink, um, that, that I'm just, that I'm just making this connection. That's not quite there, but that's there. But I saw a lot of people also making that connection. And then there's a few interview clips, uh, from maybe last year or two years ago, uh,

of Tyler just waxing poetic about that album and specifically saying that a lot of people don't listen to it because it's so honest and it feels like Kendrick's looking you in your eyes and it gets uncomfortable because it forces you to get as introspective as Kendrick and raw and honest as Kendrick is on the album. And so-

it feels like Tyler was really excited about, or I don't know, maybe inspired by that. But a battery in his back or something like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, because, and especially coming off of, um, call me if you get lost, which is, you know, for the most, there's some moments of vulnerability around this relationship, but, and I think like the song Wilshire is probably the, the epitome of that on that album. But, you know, for the most part, that, that was a victory lap. That was, uh, a lot of,

bravado and machismo and i can see where being doing the total opposite would be very attracted to him creatively as a challenge because obviously he's been more comfortable with vulnerability since flower boy showing moments obviously throughout his career but it really kind of coming to a head at flower boy and then kind of continuing from there but there is there definitely does feel like like this is a different this is a deeper layer of that vulnerability on this album and

And then I think of the mask being a motif that is, I mean, that is one of the main things on Mr. Morale is this idea of a mask. I don't want to give too much about it away because it's very, it's very central. And the way that Kendrick uses it is fucking brilliant. I think of the end of take your mask off and Tyler looking in the mirror. I think of Mr. Morale ending on the song mirror and,

and how that was a huge part of Mr. Morale 2.

to me it's not as deep as Kendrick I think they just have different life experiences and Kendrick is just able to achieve an emotional depth that I just don't feel like a lot of artists in the history of music have been able to achieve so it's not quite on the level to me but it feels like Tyler's version of it you know and very honorable to go back to your point about yeah letting your peers inspire you transparently

is really cool in a, in a, especially in a, in a genre that everyone is influenced by each other, but they try to hide it. They hide it. They just want to say they're better than each other. Like this is, this was what the thought I was dead when I'm talking like his version of it now is a more evolved, like there is some inspiration happening. This is, we are working together towards something like it's really sick.

It's a really good attitude that actually breeds productivity and creativity. Yeah. So much to chew on. Was there any other? I mean, breaking traditions, are we sad about no double track 10 song? Yeah. So let's lay that out for people that don't know. Traditionally, Tyler has had a double song, so to speak, as his 10th track dating back to project one, right? I think so. Yeah.

He also broke his two-year release cadence on Odd Years, which has been a thing since day one as well. And he broke the tradition of a Friday release. So I'm glad he is getting himself. I don't know why he was sticking to that. Maybe it was just a rhythm thing. Maybe it was a deadline thing pushing him to create, but...

Like I said a few times on the pod, I'm excited by the Tyler project that took three years. I'm excited by the notion of a Tyler project that takes four years. Because I think the extra year shows on this album. I don't really care about the 10. I don't know. I mean, at some point it's like arbitrary track 10 has two songs. If it's not adding to this particular project-

whatever right now what do you think I thought it was cool that like it serves the function of him talking about like he's breaking traditions a lot on this album he's breaking some patterns some that he doesn't like there's a shift in perspective on his dad there's a shift in perspective on so many of these things it would make sense for this to be a shift in structure of album like I think it all works together really cool that we're getting this this new phase of

is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was excited by it. Um, I'm very impressed. I just want to reiterate how impressed I am with this album. It was not what I expected, but in some ways it's, it's better than what I was expecting. So I'm really grateful for another Tyler album.

Kendrick, you got to be next. Just the end of the year is approaching. How can you ask for so much from this year? I know, this year has been great, but come on. You greedy man. Cap it off with a Kendrick album. Like we're getting a Denzel project. We're getting two West Side Gun albums. We're getting a Cordae project. We got a Doce album. Like-

This album has been, or this year has been. Shout out this 2024. I know. It's been pretty amazing, but cap it off with a West coast Kendrick album, please. All right. Well, Cam, thank you for joining as always. Thank you for having me. This was wonderful. I am. Okay. I am working on the next season of dissect. If you're still listening, it's taking longer than usual. I'll just say, uh,

The album is very intense and heavy and deep. And so I want to do it justice. True. So I'm working my best on it. Okay. And there might be an added layer to the content that is also taking some time. So I am working on that. We'll be back for sure. Me and cam, uh, in December to talk about our favorite albums of the year. I wonder what they will be. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, I got some other episodes in the clip too. So keep a look on that and we'll talk to you guys soon. Okay, see you.