The Only Good Thing About 2016 was Chance The Rapper
It’s Monday. I hate Mondays. I hate Mondays and I love lasagna. Garfield is undoubtedly my spirit animal and I accepted this years ago. But I digress. This particular Monday started out like any other. No breakfast. Anxiety filled. Customer complaints were through the roof and being a General Manager means you have to deal with everything. As you can see, I wasn’t expecting anything great to come out of today until…
Chance The Rapper drops a gem entitled, 'And They Say'.
And what a gem this is. Continuing his non-traditional use of rapping over a subtle bass and a finely tuned piano at times, Chance effortlessly blends lyrics of a boasting bravado, conversational thoughts, and of course, his favorite ad-lib melodically sung for the hook. With bars like:
smoke like a sailor,
curse like a chimney,
my pops in the mirror,
Mufasa is in me.
It was hitting home for me as I was completely unaware I was driving but fully aware my mind was being engulfed in this record.
Honestly, a song hasn’t hit me like this since Big Sean’s ‘Living Single’ (the original version with Smino also featured). And that one was crucial. I swear I had the first verse on repeat for at least a couple of weeks. Like Big Sean’s song, ‘And They Say’ has me reflecting on my life decisions and what makes me unique. This isn’t the first time Chance’s music has made a profound impact on me though.
I remember when his first mixtape, 10 Days, came out. At the time, I enjoyed it but I wasn't sure if he had the staying power in the industry, nor did I even think about it deep enough to care.
Then…
He dropped Acid Rap and I knew he was going to be here for quite a long time. It definitely earned a spot in my top 5 favorite mixtapes of all time. Plus it includes my favorite Chance record of all time, ‘Lost’ featuring Noname Gypsy (which perfectly encapsulates the most toxic relationship known to man).
He’s dropped a few other projects since then obviously, and they were all great. Hell, even the collaborative mixtape with Lil’ B was accepted, by me anyway, as a solid body of work. And Coloring Book was easily the best hip hop album of 2016 (TLoP was a close second Ye’ for real). But ‘And They Say’ took me back for a second. It took me back to 2013 after I had listened to Acid Rap relentlessly for three months straight. Back to a time where I ached for deeper lyrics in hip hop. I don’t mean politically or socially conscious content either. I mean something I could relate to and I could feel was a part of the musician’s soul. Chance is great because his words aren’t only sculpting this unrefined landscape of his own inner self, but he gives us an MTV Cribs inside look at his quest to find who he is as a human being. That’s symbolic and powerful shit. Most importantly to me, it’s relatable.
Thank you Chance. Thank you for making my Monday less Monday-y. Thank you for staying true to you and always putting out dope music. Thank you for making a record I could play for someone who ever asks me what’s the shittiest relationship I’ve ever been in. You keep doing you Chano from 79th. And as one of your many, many fans, I look forward to the ever-present evolution of Chance The Rapper, Chance The Artist, and Chance The Man.
Travis Scott just dropped 3 new records and one has Playboi Carti in it so my hunger for self-reflective hip-hop has dissipated and my insatiable appetite for trap music that gets me litty has taken its place.
Straight up!
