Photo: Tyler, The Creator via YouTube

After all, Tyler season came in 2024. This spring, before headlining Coachella, Tyler, the Creator shocked fans by saying he wouldn’t be dropping any new music this year. Maybe that was fake, or maybe his plans changed, but it’s clear that was the trap is will bring us a musical harvest after all. Tyler started teasing his seventh album, Chromacopyearlier in October, and it’s a high concept even by its standards. So far, Tyler has released the opening song “St. Chroma” and the single “Noid,” introducing us to a masked protagonist in a grayscale world. Even the vinyl and tour promos are part of the world-building! Ahead of the album’s release on October 28 – more about that below – we’ve collected everything about it here Chromacopy until now.

Is it a state of being? A place? A medical condition we should talk to our doctors about? As always with Tyler, we’re not sure. What is clear is that he uses chroma as in chromatic colors. Some fans have noticed that “St. Chroma”, the name of the first song, could be a reference to Chroma the Great, a character from Norton Juster’s classic children’s book The haunted toll booth. In Juster’s fantasy world, Chroma is an orchestra conductor whose music brings color to the world. And Tyler’s video for “St. Chroma” takes place in a monochromatic black and white world, until a bassy beat drop brightens everything up in the final seconds, as Daniel Caesar sings, “Can you feel the light?” (Coincidentally – or probably not – the word chromatic also refers to the chromatic scale, the 12 pitches that form the basis for most Western music.) The color green also seems to be important, between the album’s promotional art and the vinyl teaser.

That appears to be Tyler – or at least a character played by Tyler. The “St. Chroma” video implies that our main character is the masked man in a military jacket who leads everyone to the shipping container which he then blows up. So is he just bad, or is there more to it? The video for “Noid” may be a clue. Back in black and white, we see St. Chroma, now in street clothes but still wearing a mask, approached by crazed fans. Chroma drives to a remote house, where he proceeds to close about a million deadbolts on the door. However, he still doesn’t feel safe, but it could just be in his head, as we see him seeing figures in a mirror, but we don’t actually see those figures in the house. “Someone’s keeping watch / I feel them in my shadow,” Tyler/Chroma sings, between verses detailing his paranoia.

Is that why Chroma blew up those people in the shipping container, or is his paranoia the consequences? The “Noid” video doesn’t provide an answer. At the end we see Chroma again in color, but still masked, moving around what appears to be an empty parking lot. What’s going on there? We’ll have to wait and see.

A few old friends and a lot of new ones. R&B singer-songwriter Daniel Caesar emerged as the mysterious singer of “St. Chroma” on his Instagram Story, hinting at more contributions to the album. Meanwhile, the credits for “Noid” include Thundercat, who Tyler has been circling for a while, on bass, and Willow on background vocals. The “Noid” video also stars Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri as one of those obsessed fans who taunts Chroma with a gun. Let’s go her side of the story, please!

Fans have noticed that the masked people carrying Chroma the shipping container in “St. Chroma” resemble some of the album’s collaborators. The first man’s dreads look like Caesar. Could one of those others be Frank Ocean? For now we can dream!

We still have a few days. Tyler opposes the convention Chromacopy and dropping the album on Monday, October 28, instead of a typical Friday release date. And he doesn’t even do it at midnight — Chromacopy is out 6 a.m. ET, sharp. But maybe we’ll get some clarity the night before, when Tyler debuts the album to fans in Los Angeles. Until then we see green.