Take Your Chance With This Rapper

Greetings, arts ink world, it’s a real pleasure to be back here. My goal of blogging about music I currently enjoy is going to be made blissfully easy by a strong resurgence of excellently produced, intricately thought out and creative music in the past six months. Specifically, I will focus the next few blog posts on the burgeoning rise of the Chicago Hip Hop scene that, astonishingly, is spearheaded by a few 20-something year olds and exemplifies some of the most positive aspects of Hip Hop culture. I left off last academic year with a post about Milo & Otis, a soulful, hip-hop inspired duo, who mark the beginning of this new movement. To be clear, Chicago is no stranger to rising Hip Hop artists: Kanye, Common, Lupe, No I.D., Twista and Rhymefest all hail from the windy city. This recent surge marks a deviation from their impressive legacy because these artists form a collective– they are young, talented, and run in similar social circles. Milo & Otis released their stunning EP in 2011 (if this is unfamiliar to you google milo and otis the joy), and featured a collaboration with an emcee called Chance The Rapper. When Chance wrote and premiered on the track “Lift Up,” he was only eighteen years old.

I begin my exploration of the Chicago Hip Hop scene with Chance The Rapper because, although he is certainly not the pioneer of the group, he is presently at the forefront, arguably across the entire country, of Hip Hop. Chance began working with artists like Milo & Otis in high school, where he mostly learned and played soul and jazz music. He belonged to the same group of friends and musicians Kids These Days, a seven-member band (including rapper Vic Mensa, more on him to come) that blended rock, jazz and Hip Hop into their self-titled “Traphouse Rock” style. As Kids These Days was gaining popularity, Chance was turning his musical interests towards Hip Hop, influenced (as everyone is quick to mention) by Kanye West’s first album College Dropout. After being suspended from high school for ten days, Chance wrote and produced his first cohesive work: a mixtape called 10 Days. The mixtape put him on the radar of bigger names like Childish Gambino and Joey Bada$$, but it is Chance’s most recent effort that has every music blog and magazine gushing over the twenty year-old artist.

On April 30, 2013, Chance The Rapper dropped his second mixtape, Acid Rap; 13-tracks strong, it is unequivocally the most aesthetically pleasing, imaginative, expressive, relevant and original collection of tracks Hip Hop has seen in the past several months. (It is so phenomenal that, instead of overwhelming you with all my praise, I am going to touch on a few songs at the end of my next several blog posts, so that I extend my review throughout the weeks.) Hip Hop fanatics and skeptics alike should give Acid Rap a listen; Chance is a unique rapper in that he can be playful and silly– using his sharp and skillful wordplay to make jokes and spin out of control– and also solemnly reflective, sometimes on the very same track. His lyrics are not only substantive, they are also witty, include a wide variety of idioms, figurative language and impressive diction, and just sound good. I am so infatuated with Chance’s music because, among other reasons, it is such pretty rap; he translates his message without difficulty, but he does it in a way that channels his background in jazz and soul, setting him apart from the heavy-hitting Trap music rappers, known for their abrasive beats and overwhelming bases. Chance is markedly different, and the whole music scene is responding to him. He is so young to be so talented, and it is clear we can expect tremendous things in his future. I sometimes have to remind myself that he has yet to even produce a studio album, much less sign to a big record label. He’s still with the Save Money Militia, and he’s still gonna watch his bros.

If you haven’t gotten your hands on Acid Rap yet, go over to chanceraps.com to download it for free and peruse all things Chance.