Chance The Rapper’s rise to celebrity wasn’t foreseeable after his second mixtape, Acid Rap. To me, he was eccentric, charismatic, energetic and overall electrifying. He was pure potential. Acid Rap embodied a promising gifted rapper that would impact tomorrow. It was a foundation that a long-lasting legacy could be built on.
Chance shifted to fusing jazz and gospel for his Grammy-winning Coloring Book, but it didn’t come as a complete shock. The preluding project that was released with The Social Experiment, Surf acted as a bridge which quietly articulated a change in his sound. Gospel and God were sprinkled seasonings in his previous work, but never the primary focus of his music.
Coloring Book found the joyful rapper moving towards soulful choirs, softer melodies, and calmer lyrics. Three years separate it from Acid Rap but light years divide their sound. Coloring Book was expelled of darker heavier subject matters, the new album couldn’t puncture a tyre.
This new approach came with a level of positivity that felt like arriving at Disneyland rather than the Chicago streets. Acid Rap was far from self-indulgent, but life was viewed through a much harsher lens. Chain-smoking, acid rain, pusha men and paranoia became angels, summer friends, God and a deep-rooted hatred for major record labels.
Joe Budden was one of the first people I had come across who criticised the ‘new’ Chance The Rapper. After the performance of his new song First World Problems on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Budden described it as being ‘too happy’. He mocked Chance’s voice, the subject-matter, the choir, the gentle guitar, nothing was hidden from Budden’s critique of his performance. A man who is solely known for making mood music only saw mood music as the correct way to do rap.
Watching the performance however, ‘happy’ isn’t the first word I would use to describe the tone of the song. It’s much more melancholic than Budden gave it credit for. The issues Chance speaks on are far from being crisis-worthy, but the issues he mentions are transparent and honest, and display the growing weight on the shoulders of an increasingly popular superstar. There’s no measure to compare difficulty levels of the struggles that men and women feel. We are all fighting silent battles no matter how rich or poor, surrounded or alone, fortunate or unfortunate we are.
Many agreed with Budden’s views online. While I am a general fan of Budden’s cutthroat honesty when voicing his opinions, in this case, I felt he was extremely short-sighted. I questioned whether there is shame in expressing joy. But then again, is surrounding rap with spoken word and gospel a special defence against criticism?
Rap is often measured in realness. The more your audience believe, the more invested they will be. Lies are for reality TV and unsuccessful marriages, not rap music. It’s the same reason that Acid Rap’s Paranoia still gives me chills, the words are drenched in bloody truths about Chicago, and the struggles he speaks of are felt in every corner of the globe. He speaks of a summer in Chicago crippled with fear. The imagery in the song remains with you long after the song ends. If you haven’t listened to it already, I highly recommend that you do.
Long-time fans of hip-hop have no issues with being conveyed these harsh realities. The genre was born out of these very struggles, where hope is rare. Chance, however, no longer lives in that world. He joined fatherhood, he’s a philanthropist, and spends more time making Instagram videos with his family than on the street corners that he once spoke of. It’s unavoidable that someone with his success will experience these changes, and these changes to then be reflected in their music. The honesty remains, but the story he is telling is much, much different.
Imagine being at heights in your life that you’ve never experienced before, and then being expected to waste this energy in your art, the one thing that got you to that place. Being told to leave Eden because it’s too peaceful for a rapper. Criticising Chance for being too happy, is like criticising Drake for being too soft, J. Cole for being too emotional, Jay Z for being too old, or Joe Budden for being too depressed. Analysis that falls into this trap, to me, lacks any sort of credible value.
Unlike a ‘once upon a time’ Kanye West, Chance never made Jesus walk, but he did create an image of a sinless rapper, something no hip-hop fan has seen before. He is idealised purity in rapper form, which, at times, doesn’t seem authentic. That’s only because, as flawed beings, we are born sceptical and search for cracks in anything that seems too virtuous to be true.
Despite this, he comes off as a genuine person wanting to make genuine music, which accurately portrays his troubles and triumphs in equal measure. I might not always be able to relate to him, but I believe what he says. Positivity belongs in hip-hop, especially when the world is so unforgiving, and feels like (and probably is) one tweet away from becoming victim to a nuclear attack. Chance may do too much at times, no one is perfect, but his delivery of sunlight for those that require it most is invaluable. No one is above criticism, but if being positive is Chance The Rapper’s sin, we need a world of sinners.
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