Music

Tyler, the Creator has been one of the biggest names in hip-hop for nearly a decade and a half now, but his commercial performance and general stardom is still on the ascent. He topped the Billboard 200 albums chart with both of his last two LPs (2019’s IGOR and 2021’s Call Me If You Get Lost), and now he makes it three in a row with this year’s Chromakopia — even with just over half a week of availability.

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Tyler dropped Chromakopia at 6:00 a.m. ET on Oct. 28 — a Monday morning, three-and-a-quarter days already into the tracking week ending Oct. 31. Losing those days of potential sales and streams seemingly should have hamstrung the album’s debut performance, but Chromakopia still bows with 299,500 equivalent album units, beating not just his own previous career-best (Lost‘s 169,000 in its debut week) but the prior best mark for any hip-hop album this year (Eminem’s 281,000 bow for The Death of Slim Shady: Coup de Grâce).

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How was Tyler able to rally such an eye-popping performance in under four full days of release? And what does this entrance mean for his current star status? Billboard staffers debate these questions and more.

1. Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia debuts at No. 1 with 296,000 equivalent album units in about 3 ¾ days — barely half of a whole first week, and still not only the best number of his career but the best of any hip-hop album this year. On a scale from 1-10, how stunned are you by that number?

Eric Renner Brown: 3. I’m not stunned that Chromakopia had such a big debut, or that it posted those numbers even with only a partial week. He’s a superstar. If anything, I’m surprised that Tyler’s two previous efforts, Igor and Call Me If You Get Lost, both had first-week tallies (165,000 and 169,000 respectively) that lagged far behind Chromakopia‘s (despite being full weeks). Tyler’s been headlining arenas and festivals for years – his recorded success might be a lagging indicator of his popularity.

Kyle Denis: About a 7.5. I was very confident in Tyler’s ability to shift units, but I thought he’d top out at around 250,000 units. Nearly 300,000 units shifted is a massive achievement, but I’m most impressed at the ratio of streaming units to pure sales. He moved 142,000 in pure album sales (his best sales week ever) and 157,000 in streaming equivalent units (about 213 million official on-demand streams, his biggest streaming week ever for an album)… that means he would’ve been No. 1 even if based solely on streams or solely on sales!

Jason Lipshutz: A 4. While scoring a career-best equivalent album units total in half a week is a stunning achievement in a vacuum, Tyler, the Creator’s popularity has recently exploded to such a degree that I am not remotely surprised to see him earn the year’s biggest hip-hop debut or approach the 300,000 mark. After notching his first No. 1 album with 2019’s Igor, Tyler’s profile has expanded over the past half-decade, thanks to critically acclaimed albums, dynamic guest spots, arena shows and awards performances. He is one of the biggest stars in modern music, so while the details of this debut are a little surprising, the personality behind them is not.

Michael Saponara: 9.5. To do just under 300,000 in about a half week of tracking is incredible and proves Tyler is a commercial titan and forced to be reckoned with as a leader of his generation. It was only further crystallized after hearing he would have gone No. 1 on the Billboard 200 taking either sum of pure physical sales or streaming alone. 

Andrew Unterberger: Gotta be at least an 8. I mean, we all knew that Tyler was big — and always getting bigger — but was he “year’s best rap first week with only half a week” big? Even if you suspected it was possible, there’s no way you could be confident in something like that before seeing it, especially because these numbers blow so far past any of the (already-quite-impressive) numbers he put up with his last few acclaimed sets.

2. Obviously a lot has gone in to lead up to that huge opening number for Chromakopia, but what would you say is the biggest reason it’s zoomed past Tyler’s previous releases in its first quasi-frame?

Eric Renner Brown: Tyler’s profile has risen significantly since 2021. Just look at this year’s Coachella, where he wasn’t only a headliner, but performed what many considered the festival’s highest-concept and best set. For a long time, Tyler was a popular cult favorite (his lack of a major Hot 100 hit until now, as lead or featured artist, has played a big part in this). Now he’s finally crossing over in a way that more general music fans are being exposed and taking notice. The Odd Future of it all is also important: With every passing year, Tyler gets further from his controversial Odd Future days, and they constitute a decreasing portion of his overall career. It’s easy to imagine adolescents and young adults who love Tyler’s generally approachable modern era and haven’t heard Bastard, Radical or Goblin. And that might be for the best (they should check out “Oldie,” though).

Kyle Denis: More than its rollout or the quality of the music – both undoubtedly remarkable – Chromakopia benefited from the steady world-building of all things Tyler. From 2017’s Flower Boy, Tyler has used each new studio album to level up the narrative and conceptual worlds of his LPs, his stage show, his overall aesthetic, and most importantly, his fans’ trust in his ability to consistently put out quality work and products that are worth buying with their hard-earned money.

With that leveling up comes pre-album hype, and Chromakopia certainly had that thanks to the success of Flower Boy, Igor and Call Me If You Get Lost. That three-album run solidified Tyler as one of hip-hop’s best mainstream album-makers and world-builders, and fans were willing to show up for him – even if that meant waking up early on a Monday morning. Of course, pre-album hype isn’t a complete explanation; Chromakopia ultimately lived up to the hype, ensuring that its consumption numbers didn’t dramatically taper off as the tracking week continued. 

Jason Lipshutz: Simply put, Tyler, the Creator is the coolest artist in hip-hop right now — able to speak to young listeners and bring in veteran rappers as guest artists, having spent a decade in the spotlight but still moving with the dynamism and unpredictability of a fresh new star. The evidence may be anecdotal, but if you’ve been paying attention to Tyler’s streaming numbers, ticket sales, Golf Wang merchandising efforts or Camp Flog Gnaw festival bookings, you’d see empirical evidence that his cultural cache has steadily risen in recent years, to a fever pitch by the time Chromakopia was released. It helps that his latest full-length contains some of his strongest songs and most interesting musings on fame, aging and potential fatherhood — but regardless of the content, Tyler is currently in too-big-to-fail territory.

Michael Saponara: Tyler typically released projects every other year and he skipped over the odd year trend when 2023 came and went so I think there was even more of an appetite for Tyler music. He’s been able to play the long game and make it work beautifully as he continues to build on his success commercially with every album it seems. 

Andrew Unterberger: It’s been a snowball effect for his last three albums, each of which have arguably been more acclaimed and more accomplished than the one before. He’s built up that consistent standard of full-album excellence more than anyone in contemporary hip-hop (with the lone exception of fellow West Coaster Kendrick Lamar), so it makes sense that folks would show out like this for a new set of his in 2024.

3. No doubt that number would have been even bigger — perhaps even borderline-historic — had Tyler gone the traditional route with a Friday release, but it’s hard to deny that doing the Monday-morning drop seems to have been beneficial for the album’s overall reception. If you were in charge of the album rollout, would you have recommended Tyler go for the full first week for the really eye-popping number it might’ve produced, or do you think he was better off doing the midweek release he did?

Eric Renner Brown: By dropping midweek, Tyler got the discourse to himself – which I’m guessing helped juice his numbers and interest in the album, even during that truncated period. I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Tyler has built his career on intensely passionate fans and zigging where others zag. This release strategy is in keeping with his M.O. as an artist, and I expect many more divergences from industry norms in the future.

Kyle Denis: I think this number is eye-popping enough; it’s a triumph in every way. I’d probably tell him to keep the midweek release. The attention was solely on Tyler, and the Monday release allowed him to sidestep the deluge of music that floods DSPs on Fridays. I also think people got to engage the album with fresh start-of-the-week ears instead of having to work their way through a relatively dense new project after a long week of pre-election mania. 

Jason Lipshutz: There are pluses and minuses to both strategies: with a Monday release, Tyler’s new album dominated the focus of music fans for four solid days before any new album was released on Friday, but its first-week numbers were always going to be deflated by arriving in the middle of the chart week. Obviously Tyler prioritized cultural conversation over commercial returns when it came to Chromakopia, but I’d be hard-pressed to find too many artists who would want to jeopardize a chart placement by cutting their first-week numbers in half. So to answer the question: Tyler has reached the level of fame where he can forego the traditional route, and I’d encourage him, and other superstars, to mix things up as much as they wanted. 

Michael Saponara: I actually liked Tyler breaking the status quo and going with the Monday morning release. Especially after hearing Chromakopia, it’s better suited as a companion on that work/school commute than the party pre-game playlist on a Friday night. An interview with Nardwuar resurfaced where Tyler articulated the active versus passive listening that fans endure with that routine weekday commute rather than laid-back weekend activities. It’s not like he sacrificed doing a big first week of sales – think about years ago saying Tyler would outsell Eminem while having about half the tracking time. 

Andrew Unterberger: The purist in me would love to know what kind of number Tyler could have amassed with a full week’s consumption on this album — obviously he would’ve blown clear past 300k, but would 400k have been in range? Maybe with a little extra button-pushing, perhaps even 500k? I love to see our best artists going for history, but I also love to see our best artists doing what feels right to them artistically and getting maximum attention that way. Ultimately he’s probably better off going the route he did, though for my own curiosity’s sake, I wish we could at least simulate the other reality.

4. “St. Chroma” leads the way on the Hot 100 this week from the album, with all 14 songs making an appearance (and “Noid” also appearing at No. 10). Does “Chroma” seem like the obvious Hit on the album? Does Chrompakopia have (or need) an obvious Hit?

Eric Renner Brown: I’ve been following Tyler since the early Odd Future days, and think he has gems throughout his catalog, from his adolescent horrorcore right up through his modern soul-and-funk-infused hip-hop fantasias. “St. Chroma” is one of the best and most beautiful things he’s ever put to tape. It’s also a strangely structured, knotty song that doesn’t feel like a hit, and that’s how I feel about most of the album. “Darling, I,” another Chromakopia standout, comes close: Like much of Tyler’s work, it’s off-kilter in a tough to articulate way, but it’s a traditionally structured song with a total earworm of a hit and an exciting guest turn, from Teezo Touchdown. All that said, given Tyler’s quiet but deep influence on contemporary hip-hop and R&B, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these hits pull the Hot 100 to them despite their nonconformity.

Kyle Denis: Forget “St. Chroma,” “Sticky” is the obvious hit on Chromakopia. From the lunchroom-evoking beat to the bombastic marching band horns to fiery verses from Tyler, GloRilla, Sexyy Red and Lil Wayne, “Sticky” will probably be Tyler’s biggest hit yet, if handled correctly. Interestingly, I don’t think Chromakopia needs a traditional hit, but it’s cool that it has one waiting in the wings. Tyler never saw the top 10 of the Hot 100 before this week, but that didn’t stop him from scoring four consecutive six-figure opening week totals and winning Grammys for his last two albums.

Jason Lipshutz: Tyler fans checked out the entire album upon its release, and “St. Chroma” benefitted from being the opening track on Chromakopia… but “Sticky,” the outrageous fight-night anthem featuring GloRilla, Sexyy Red and Lil Wayne, is the obvious hit to me. Not only do all three guests make a lasting impression with four-bar pop-ins, but Tyler’s charisma runs rampant on the track, the schoolyard-chant chorus will make you ready to throw down at any moment, and those horns in the back half deliver the single best adrenaline rush on the album. I can’t wait to see thousands of people lose their minds when Tyler drops that one in concert.

Michael Saponara: I’ve been leaning on “Sticky” as my go-to this past week. Shout-out to Sexyy, Weezy and Big Glo. I don’t think there’s an “obvious hit” on the project that will dominate the charts and that’s okay. The album doesn’t need the single anthems to accomplish his goal and make noise commercially as Tyler will be riding Chromakopia into another set of Grammy nominations in ‘26.

Andrew Unterberger: It seems like “Sticky” is on its way to hit status, though that feels just the tiniest weird to me as the album’s breakout single because I’m sure the parts that are really taking off on TikTok and that are gonna be dropped at every festival DJ set for the rest of the year are the parts that don’t really even involve Tyler. Personally I would love it if “Darling, I” could end up being this album’s “Birds of a Feather.” But honestly “Sticky” still knocks so I wouldn’t be mad at that becoming a major radio, club and chart fixture either.

5. Tyler has been operating on the fringes of superstardom for most of the past half-decade or so — does this Chromakopia half-debut confirm to you that he has officially arrived as one? (If not, what does he still need to do to get there?)

Eric Renner Brown: I would argue that Tyler has been a superstar for a while, albeit not quite on the level of your Billies and Harrys and so forth. But he’s been a bankable festival headliner for years and has been rubbing shoulders with the top-tier of artists for even longer. But what’s standing between him and that A+-tier is a major crossover hit. I don’t think Chromakopia will yield that for him – and I’m not sure that’s what he’s chasing, anyway.

Kyle Denis: I’m probably a bit biased because my circles run younger and have followed Tyler for years, but I personally began to recognize him as a superstar with Call Me If You Get Lost. We’re talking about an album that returned to No. 1 nearly a year after its initial release thanks to the 49,000 vinyl copies it sold, which was then the largest vinyl sales week for a hip-hop album – and he blew past that number with Chromakopia’s first-week vinyl sale total. I vividly remembered how that album took over conversations for months, backed an arena tour and anchored his 2024 Coachella headlining performance. Even the way people lost their minds at the “St. Chroma” teaser signaled to me that Tyler had reached another level of stardom.

Nonetheless, if I’m being a bit more pragmatic, Tyler needs at least one bonafide across-the-board smash before we can truly call him a superstar. I think “Sticky” can be that song for him.

Jason Lipshutz: Yep, this is it, the train has left the station. And kudos to Tyler for never forsaking his outsider status for the sake of mainstream exposure, or capitulating to any hip-hop trends over the past decade. He is a proudly weird superstar — we need more of those.

Michael Saponara: Oh yeah, he’s a bona fide superstar with a massive arena tour in tow. I think where it gets tricky, for me, is he considered a pop star with that kind of crossover commercial appeal? “NOID” and “St. Chroma” were the first pair of Hot 100 top 10 entries in his career and I think he needs that single anthem everyone in middle America is singing along to and it’s all over radio if he wants to elevate to that Super Bowl Halftime Show level of stardom eventually. 

Andrew Unterberger: Can you be a superstar without a massive crossover hit? In 2024, the answer is probably “yes” — and also, maybe Tyler sorta stealthily had that hit already with “Earfquake” five years ago anyway. At the very least, Tyler is now unquestionably one of the most impactful artists of this pop and hip-hop generation, in ways we will probably continue to see blossom throughout this decade and likely beyond.