Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book Review

Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book- Review 

On Chance the Rapper's follow up to Acid Rap, the rapper departs from his previous music for a more heavily gospel and soul influenced mixtape. While the best songs are amazing, the worst songs on the album leave a little to be desired, though there are only a few such songs.

Chancellor Bennett, stage name "Chance the Rapper", was born and raised in West Chatham, Chicago, Illinois. As Bennett progressed through school he dreamed of becoming a musician. After a 10 day suspension in high school for possession of marijuana on campus, Chance began to work on his debut project 10 Day. Following the release of 10 Day in April of 2012, Chance recorded and released Acid Rap one year later. Featuring artists like Ab-Soul, Twista, and Childish Gambino, who he had gone on tour with the year before, Acid Rap was lauded as one of the best mixtapes of 2013. Two years later Chance would go on to release Surf, his third album, which also received widespread acclaim from critics. However, many were surprised with a sound very different from Acid Rap, since Chance's involvement in the creation of the album was sidelined due to the focus of the album seeming to be on Nico Segal and the rest of the Social Experiment. After another year of waiting for a Chance project, Coloring Book was released in May of 2016.

The mixtape generally has a different feel from Acid Rap. Where Acid Rap felt a lot more like Chance going 110% on every song, more lowkey songs like Summer Friends and Blessings make Coloring Book a more mellow project. However, I find that this does not take away from how good this mixtape is. Chance still has excellent flow, and he still brings energy to his music in songs like All Night and No Problem. This evolution of his music still does exist though, as many of the songs on Coloring Book appear to be heavily influenced by gospel and soul. This evolution of his music most likely comes from his dedication of his music to his daughter. This dedication of his music to his children is also seen in songs like D.R.A.M. Sings Special, which literally begins with "You are very special // You're special too // Everybody's special // This I know is true // When I look at you", indicating that everyone in the world, especially his daughter, is special. Song's like Same Drugs possibly provide a warning for his daughter to not forget her childhood friends as she ages, reminiscing in the song by asking "Don't you miss the days, stranger? // Don't you miss the days?"

I really liked Coloring Book's blend of hip-hop, soul, and gospel. I felt like it was a strong development of Chance's music, and definitely an evolution from his previous mixtape Acid Rap. Also, this album was the one of the first massively successful and critically acclaimed projects that followed the "post-To Pimp a Butterfly sound", which was a sound that was heavily influenced by jazz, funk, soul, etc... This "post-To Pimp a Butterfly sound" was only helped by some of the features on this album, such as Noname's feature on Drown, Jeremih's short verse on Summer Friends, or Jay Electronica's verse on How Great. In terms of specific songs, I felt that Same Drugs and Summer Friends really captured Chance's emotions, his feelings of loss, such that you could feel them listening to the songs. Going back to the progression of Chance's sound, I think that Coloring Book is the development of Chance's music as a father and a commercially successful artist, whereas on Acid Rap Chance was primarily spitting bars or having fun, or on 10 Day, which captured debut Chance. Finally, I would say that as always with Chance's music, the energy is there. The high energy that was consistent throughout almost all of Acid Rap was present here, despite having songs like How Great, that have a slower tempo.

As much as I liked the album, I found that there are a few places where it could be better. First, the mixing was okay, at sometimes atrocious, most notably on the hook for All We Got, where you can't really hear Kanye because of the auto-tune, and the loud bass. Also, this mixtape did have its fair share of "filler" tracks. For example, Mixtape seemed to have no place on the project, and one might argue similarly against the inclusion of Juke Jam being on the project.


As a whole, I would say I did enjoy the album. I think the best songs on the mixtape are Summer Friends and Same Drugs because they both display Chance's ability to tell stories and be lyrically sound over excellent production. I also thoroughly support Chance's choice to infuse his music with soul and gospel versus trap. Chance is definitely one of the best rappers right now, and I think his talent as a musician and a rapper is evident on this mixtape.



Lyricism: 7/10
Production: 8.8/10
Flow: 8.7/10
Overall: 8.6/10

What do you think about this album, or songs from this album?
Where do you think Chance's sound will go from here?
I hope you enjoyed this review.






-J