Tyler, the Creator is giving his fans a peak behind the curtain in a new behind the scenes video.
Shot and edited by Lazaro Rodriguez — who also directed Tyler’s “Hot Wind Blows” video and was the cinematographer for his “Heaven to Me” video — the new video titled Mask Is Off: Chromakopia sees Tyler putting together his latest album. The six-minute, 18-second mini-documentary features clips of Tyler in his home and recording studio as he puts together verses, directing vocals and critiquing production on his Chromakopia LP. We get an intimate look as he plays instruments, produces, raps, sings, and makes references that we then see come to life in the studio. There’s also cameos from Daniel Caesar, Sexyy Red, Thundercat, Teezo Touchdown, and more.
These days it’s rare when fans get a glimpse of how an album is made behind the scenes. Tyler is old enough to remember when MTV and VH1 would air profiles and mini-docs featuring some of the biggest artists in the world, and has been adamant about artists talking about their creative process more often.
He expressed as much in a 2023 interview with Nardwuar where the rapper and producer seemed frustrated by today’s music media landscape. “We’re at a point where a musician who you know for music is being interviewed on a platform about music talking in detail about music and people are like ‘why does he keep doing that?’,” he said. “But if I was on here gossiping or so and so, talking about beef, and so on people would feed into it. No, we need to get back to talking about music… Talk about your album, talk about your music.”
Chromakopia is the West Coast rapper’s third No. 1 album and sits atop the Billboard 200 for the second week in a row. Be sure to check out Mask Is Off: Chromakopia above.