When I am not going to university in Boston, I am living down south, adventuring around Memphis. The city is filled with all the usual things that one thinks about when pondering about the Bluff City. Yes, the barbecue is the finest in the world, and the Grizzlies are the rowdiest team in the NBA. However, a statistic that Memphis has failed to shake is its crime rate, an ever growing problem.
Murder rates are constant, and while there are many mainstays in Memphis, the true blues of the town is its crime. I compare my city to Chicago, the windy city of the Midwest that has given us one of our generations greatest artists. His name is Chancelor Bennett, but you probably know him by his stage name, Chance the Rapper.
Growing up in Chicago’s south side, one of the roughest parts of town, Chance has progressively become one of the best rappers in the hip hop game today. He truly is living the dream, making a career out of doing whatever he wants to do. He has opened for Eminem, shared stages with Kendrick Lamar, hung out with Taylor Swift and collaborated with Kanye West.
The odd thing about theChicago rapper is that he is not signed under a record label and that looks as though it is not really going to change after speaking on the subject in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:
“Label deals suck, that’s just the truth of it,” Chance says. “People believe you have to be discovered by a higher power, who hires you and takes a percentage, but in reality, you have to garner a fan base on your own.”
Even without a record deal, Chance has become wildly successful in the music industry, amassing a cult following that can only be compared to other musical juggernauts. After being suspended from high school for weed related activities Chance put the finishing touches on "10 Day", his first mixtape. His next project took him from Soundcloud rapper to more of a household name, releasing "Acid Rap," which he released for free to the fans. Even today it is one of the most downloaded mixtapes of all time.
After two wildly popular mixtapes and a slue of collaborations with some of the music industry elites Chance recently released his third solo project, "Coloring Book."
And it’s breathtaking.
It is better than Drake’s recently platinum Views, by a long shot. I would consider the project on the same adventurous plain as Kanye West’s "Life of Pablo." It is both exhilarating and also philosophical, throughout the album Chance refers back to his time in the Chicago suburb of Chiraq, a neighborhood stricken with violence.Not just focusing on the negatives Chance instead points out all the blessings in his life, making us all feel guilty for taking the pleasures in life for granted. It feels a bit cheeky to compare it to a politically driven album such as Kendrick Lamar’s "To Pimp a Butterfly," but it would be silly not to.
Chance packs in so much gospel verve into an album unlike any other, it sounds like Hezekiah Walker and the Love Fellowship Crusade Choir are going to crash through your speakers. With its boisterous noise and articulate lyrics "Coloring Book" is one of the strongest hip hop albums released this year and will be featured on numerous year-end lists aplenty.
I personally think that "Pitchfork," a music reviewing powerhouse filled with hipsters that have heard everything before you, somehow summed it up best when it comes to reviewing such a project:
“Chance the Rapper’s 'Coloring Book' is one of the strongest rap albums released this year, an uplifting mix of spiritual and grounded that even an atheist can catch the spirit to.
The album has a similar feel to "Ultralight Beam," the opener from Kanye West’s most recent project, "Life of Pablo." Perhaps it was only a foreshadowing of what was to come for the wide eyed MC. Chance is not only a strong lyricist, but he also delves deep into Christian ideology, with allusions to Noah’s Ark and Lot’s wife, with “foot on the devil’s neck ‘til it drifted Pangea.” West is calling his album a gospel album with cursing. While similar, Chance’s makes you want to jump out of your pew at church and profess your love for all to hear.
Throughout the album there are strong Christian overtones and biblical references, the message is one of salvation; it praises the Lord purely for the opportunity to be alive. It reminds me a lot of times sitting in church with my parents on Sundays, the choir vibrating off the stained glass windows and the preacher moving the audience with a telling sermon.
The goose bumps that appear when you hear the choir on “How Great” are undeniable.It all inspires a spirit to uplift like that of church. You dance, shout, wave your hand back and forth, you do something with your body and you can not explain why, but something about this, being in this place, with this music and these people, causes you to cast out your burdens and delight in celebration.
It is the same kind of celebration Kirk Franklin and God’s property achieved. Even when you didn’t think that gospel could sound like this, Chance brought it to a hip hop album.
Chance did not magically make this happen all by himself. Even without a record contract he enlisted some of the music world’s brightest minds. Think of Chance as Mr. Holland in "Mr. Holland's Opus," others help create the music, but in the end, Chance is the bandleader.
Just on "Coloring Book" alone, Chance collaborated with artists such as: D.R.A.M, T-Pain, Eryn Allen Kane, Young Thug, Future, the Chicago Children’s Choir and gospel powerhouse, Kirk Franklin.
When music comes like this – persona and panoramic, full conversations with God, defying hip-hop normalcy while respecting them proving that the genre can still dig deeper into its roots – it needs to be thought as what it is. "Coloring Book" is tempting, almost daring us to spread our wings, telling us that we can fly again.
At times life can feel as if pure joy is unattainable. To think of all that is robbed of you, asked of you, assumed of you, and to think of the looming specter of death that surround you. To come out of that with a spirit that is cheerful in spite of the odds is both beautiful and admirable. Joy is evident in Chance’s "Coloring Book," for all its religion, is dedicated to using expression of joy without restraint.
Apostle Paul said to the church of Corinthians, “I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all.” Music is all we got, and nobody can say Chance the Rapper is not giving it all he’s got.
