Skip to main content

Chance the Rapper

50
Chance the Rapper

Chance the Rapper

It all started when Dr. Powers suspended Chancelor Bennett for skipping school. He was suspended for ten days. Out of this came Chance the Rapper’s first mixtape, 2012’s 10 Day. The mixtape garnered significant buzz and critical claim, gaining the attention of many music media outlets. Chance saw and his moment and rode that wave. He quickly followed up his debut with another certified-classic, 2013’s Acid Rap. This is when I jumped on the Chance bus. I love an album that catches the listeners attention right away, and five seconds into the first track, “Good Ass Intro” I knew I was in for a good time. And Chance hasn’t let me down yet. Acid Rap brought him into the mainstream. We got an excellent remix track with James Blake’s “Life Round Here.” Don’t forget “Chance Does Acid In Mexico.” Still riding that wave, hoping he could keep riding that crest, Chance out-did himself with his third mixtape: a gospel rap album for the noncommittal masses, warm with optimism and wrapped in the raw essence of Christian ideals. Opening track “All We Got” from Coloring Book set the tone right away. Coloring Book found Chance peaking at his most humble, coming into his own as he penned about joining hands, reveling in young love, and counting one’s blessings. It truly was his high-water mark. This is a man who spits his own gospel; and his gospel is this: he makes songs for free and also for freedom. I personally love Chance because his delivery is on-par with Snoop in that it is so original and recognizable. Let’s hope Chance keeps riding this wave and sticks around as long as Uncle Snoop has. 2019 gave us his most recent release The Big Day which was basically a love letter to his wife. It was the first slip in the sense that it wasn’t as ground-breaking as Acid Rap or solidifying as Coloring Book, but still a solid effort with his signature sound. A lot of his sound is owed to the Social Experiment. The Social Experiment is a musical creative comprised Peter Cottontale (Music Director/Keys), Nate Fox (Keys), Greg Landfair Jr. (Drums) and Donnie Trumpet (Trumpet & Backing Vocals) who all have been with Chance since those fateful ten days of suspension [They released an album, 2015’s Surf, that is worth checking out, if for the song “Wanna Be Cool” alone]. So there you have it, Chance the Rapper. He came, he saw, and he conquered. Ain’t that dapper?
It’s…
Chance The Rapper

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Cake

43 Cake Cake What you need is some CAKE. The late 90's were primed for CAKE. When the emotional hangover of the grunge scene was too much, we got CAKE. This isn't a gag joke. In fact- your gag reflexes are in need of some CAKE.  Despite CAKE's quirky surface, singer John McCrea's deadpan delivery and Vince Di Fiore's mariachi trumpet playing, CAKE is as real as it gets. And with more than 25 years as a band and still going strong, they have nothing left to prove. It all started with 1994's Motorcade for Generosity with the single " Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle " which mocked trust-fund rebels. Then came 1996's Fashion Nugget with the all-time classic " The Distance ." 1998 gave us Prolonging the Magic, a high-water mark. I got on board in 2001 with Comfort Eagle . I was big on disco at the time and their cover of " I Will Survive " caught my attention, and then I saw the " Short Skirt, Long Jacket " video o...

Grouper

 131 Grouper  Grouper Reverb. Echo. Effects. Acoustic. Droney. These are some words you could use to explain Grouper's earlier work. Grouper is the solo project of Liz Harris. Her first album was self-titled & self-released. Grouper's second album was 2006's Way Their Crept . There was something special about that mid-ought's droney-underwater sounding indie. Grouper would go on to release five (!) more albums before I came on board as a fan: 2006's Wide , 2007's Cover The Windows & The Walls , 2008's widely acclaimed Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill & 2011's double-album (but separately released) AIA: Dream Loss & AIA: Alien Observer ... just to be followed up by 2012's double album: Violent Replacement Part I and Violent Replacement Part II . It wasn't until Grouper's more structured-releases that I became a full fledged fan. It was with 2013's The Man Who Died In His Boat that I finally jumped on board as a full-fled...

FKA twigs

99 FKA twigs FKA twigs FKA twigs is the brain-child of Tahliah Barnett. Under her stage-name of FKA twigs (which I'll just refer to her as twigs from here-on-out) she has released three EP’s (2012’s EP1 , 2013’s EP2 , and 2015’s incredible M3LL155X EP )  and two albums (2014’s LP1 & 2019’s Magdalene ). With someone with such a small catalogue, it's amazing how dense and rich this music is. Before Billie Eilish made the whole whisper-singer mainstream last year, twigs was already releasing down-tempo-trip-hop-whisper-sung music back in 2012. That is when she released her debut, EP1 . twigs hqd been studying dance since the age of six, but deep down, she knew she always wanted to be a recording artist so she eventually left the dancing behind (in a way [dance has always been a big part of her project]) to focus on her music project. However, limiting to just a music project is doing it an injustice in labeling. It’s more of a visual-dancing-art project. Ever ev...