Chance 3. Chance 3. Chance 3. If you haven't heard of Chance the Rapper yet, you will.
Not too long ago, he was still considered one of those "underground gems" in rap music, never releasing an actual album, only a series of mixtapes that he had released for free. I remember hearing his name pop up while I was at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in 2015 and not really even knowing who he was, aside from a feature or two that I may have heard.
It wasn't until Chance's show-stopping performance with Kanye West on Saturday Night Live in February that buzz started to rapidly grow for this new face in mainstream hip-hop. Chance delivered his verses from Kanye's "The Life of Pablo," album opener "Ultralight Beam" and left the audience, both live and on television, stunned. Also, when Kanye's much too anticipated album was to drop, Kanye blamed Chance for delaying the release of the album on Twitter, just so that the single "Waves" would make the final cut.
All of this national spotlight on this "Chance the Rapper" guy had people searching his stuff like crazy. His two free mixtapes "10 Day" and "Acid Rap" garnered an incredible 250 thousand and one million downloads, respectively, and are two of the most celebrated mixtapes to have ever been released.
Chance the Rapper also became the official Club Ambassador of his hometown Chicago White Sox, even designing a new line of hats for the baseball club. By the way, the hats are pretty sweet.
People had looked deeper into his verse on "Ultralight Beam" where he references "Chance 3." People began begging "Lil Chano from 79th" for news on when Chance 3 would be released, and he responded with a promotional pack of "Chance 3" posters that could only be bought in packs of 20, with the sole purpose of fans posting these advertisements all over their hometown cities.
This only stirred up the Chance 3 hysteria. It was soon after that he performed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and announced the release date for his upcoming mixtape. When Chance finally dropped his third full-length project "Chance 3/ Coloring Book," fans new and old flocked to get the songs, making the project skyrocket up national charts, reaching No.8 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, becoming the first album to chart on the list entirely off of streams alone. I know that when he dropped "Coloring Book", I was so excited that I even started a free trial of Apple Music solely with the intent of listening to Chance's new stuff until it hit other platforms.
Since the project's release, I haven't been able to stop listening to the new mixtape, and I catch myself taking the long way home just to finish an extra song or two. "No Problem" has already been dubbed the song of the summer by multiple outlets due to the power of it's features and the positive energy this song gives off. I mean it's Lil' Chano, Lil' Wanye and 2 Chainz all on one track -- what more could you look for in a song of the summer? Chance just released the music video for it, and it fits perfectly. It's basically a bunch of rap's biggest faces doing one big happy dance.
And to think that this rising star isn't even signed to a label. He has had this much success with a mixtape in which, according to his interview with Zane Lowe on Beats1 radio, he wasn't even able to include a lot of singles and features that he intended to due to disputes with other artists' labels. That is the premise behind "No Problem" and Chance is truly becoming an artist that labels definitely don't want a problem with.
With appearances at multiple music festivals, an upcoming tour and eventually his first "true" album, Chance has nowhere to go but up. He confirmed via Reddit that he will again be camping at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival this year, which I will be attending, and I will be constantly on the lookout for him around the festival grounds and on the stage for surprise appearances. I missed Chance and Kendrick Lamar surprise performing with Earth, Wind, And Fire Last year, and I CAN'T miss something that big again.
As long as Lil' Chano keeps spreading his overly contagious good vibes, "Blessings" will continue to keep falling into his, and our laps. Keep up the good work, "Big Fella."
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