After fans purchased poster packs and plastered his face to buildings in cities all over the world, Chance the Rapper dropped his latest mixtape, Coloring Book, in late May of this year. While the independent “Sunday Candy” artist is known for a more relaxed rapping style, Chance hit us with some very deep lyrics-all while adding in a splash of gospel.
In the hustle-and-bustle of the 2016 hip hop scene, it was so wonderful to be given this album. While ‘trapping’ is all the hype these days, it seemed like the Chicago native wanted to take us back to his roots.
The talk of his family, daughter, and girlfriend show how family oriented he is (not to mention how refreshing it is to hear about something real again!), and he still managed to make a fun filled album with excellent beats and plenty of amazing features, including Kanye West, D.R.A.M., Lil Yachty, Future, Kirk Franklin, Justin Bieber, and T-Pain, to name a few.
While Chance drops real verses throughout the album, I think the choir made it even more special for a lot of us. This is a gospel influenced album that takes you to church every time you listen to it. I am a huge fan of both Chance and Kirk Franklin, but I hadn’t mentally combined them until Coloring Book. It seems that Chance used a similar idea to Kanye’s Ultralight Beam and spread it across an entire album, while making it completely fresh and original.
The gospel sound of the album formerly known as “Chance 3” has influenced the ears of “Acid Rap” fans everywhere, showing them a new side of “Lil Chano from 79th”. It’s reminiscent of a live choir performance in church, which rarely happens here in the PNW. The lyrics are poetic, deep, dimensional, and very observant, which is what we can expect from Chance. He really invites his listeners to get to know him; from his perseverance through previous addiction, his own upbringing, or the birth of his daughter.
He’s obviously gained popularity too; the rapper performed his recent song “Summer Friends” on Good Morning America in mid August. He was nominated for a VMA, unfortunately losing to Drake's "Hotline Bling", but later mentioned that being noticed was all he needed. Chance is going on his Magnificent Coloring World Tour throughout the next few months (until December 31st according to his website).
This album fits into any hip hop fan’s playlist. From classic gospel tunes like “Blessings”, to more high energy songs like “All Night”,“Mixtape”, or the wildly popular “No Problem”, Chance thought of all of his supporters while producing this album.
Overall, I think that Coloring Book gave everyone a break from the trap scene, just long enough to remind us of the emotional elements and commitment that should go into music. This is one of the albums that is going to change the brand of modern hip hop. It brings it back to the classic times, and adds so many different flavors, unifying listeners like real music should.
