Tyler, the Creator: “NOID”

The first phase of Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia opens in the middle of a bad dream. If Call Me If You Get Lost was a victory lap that lauded his titanic success with luxurious swagger, then “NOID”—the first full song from the forthcoming album—makes a sharp turn to the flip side with his own mangled version of Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me.” All around the walls are closing in: The sample, from a 1977 track by the Zambian rock band Ngozi Family, brings little more than truncated guitar riffs. The drum beat hits like a metronome in a Twilight Zone episode. The kinetic vocal sample swoops in like an intrusive thought. It’s a nice marriage of Tyler’s rock-rap sensibilities, with guitar vamps punctuating frenetic, panicked bars that feel as though he’s losing control with each syllable. Everywhere he turns, the panopticon of celebrity is staring right back. “Triple checking if I locked the door/I know every creak that’s in the floor/Motherfucker I’m paranoid,” he growls, eerily reminiscent of the version of Tyler that spit on Wolf or Cherry Bomb: unable to find peace, checking under the bed and down every hall for monsters real or imaginary.