Chancelor Bennett, better known as Chance The Rapper, is a Chicago-based independent rapper known for his critically acclaimed mixtapes 10 Day and Acid Rap. The first unsigned artist to perform on Saturday Night Live, he has garnered a massive following in only four years of making music. Chance’s latest mixtape, Coloring Book, has been highly anticipated since Acid Rap dropped three years ago. Chance is a father now, something that he projects wholly onto this album. Coloring Book is an evolution of his sound as an artist, but one that may lose him some of the fans who fell in love with the trippy, erratic sounds that defined Acid Rap.
The chronology of Chance’s tapes tracks him from a wide-eyed high school student making music during a 10-day suspension to a bombastic and hyperactive young man immersed in love for his city with a druggy, erratic and emphatic sound on Acid Rap. Some of the work that Chance puts forth on his latest, Coloring Book, is genuinely fantastic. From the track “Blessings” and its reprise as the concluding track to the joyous and uplifting “D.R.A.M. Sings Special,” much of the tape delivers the heady, insightful and sonically rich content for which Chance is known.
I cannot praise the upbeat party anthem “All Night” enough. From its infectious hook by singer/producer Knox Fortune to the goofy and carefree flow that Chance expresses on the song, the listener can’t help but start to groove as soon as the song comes on. The hero of the track, though, is producer Kaytranada, who delivers on what might be the most well-produced song on the entire tape. A beat that constantly evolves and remains as interesting as the lyrics creates a song that demands to be revisited.
Chance, too, easily crafts songs that demand to be revisited. Addressing his growth as an artist, “Same Drugs” is his most challenging vocal performance on the tape. Chance’s typical up-and-down, eclectic flow is replaced by a deliberate and almost pained singing throughout the song. Speaking to his city through the metaphor of a girl named Wendy (as Chicago is the “Windy City,” a metaphor popularized by Kanye West’s “Homecoming”), he questions, “When did you change? Wendy you’ve aged … I was too late, a shadow of what I once was,” and further asserts in the chorus, “We don’t do the same drugs no more.” The song is the epitome of the passion and intricacy that fans have come to love. He’s not speaking about drugs in the literal sense, but in the sense that he cannot be the person he once was; his new role as a father forces him to accept responsibility and grow despite the fun he had when he and his friends were “wide-eyed kids being kids.”
Some of the densest and most intricate flows on Coloring Book are in “How Great,” which tackles the subject of maintaining faith in situations of adversity. The song is an anthem of praise, in which Chance manages to hold his own against Jay Electronica, the enigmatic emcee whose verses can shut down the rap industry despite their rarity. This song would be the highlight of the mixtape had the verses not been preceded by two minutes and 45 seconds of a gospel choir repeatedly questioning “How great is our God?!” While the gospel influence is prevalent throughout the tape and fits the song well, after a couple of listens, the novelty wears off, and it’s easy to zone out until the drums kick in, signaling the arrival of the stellar verses.
Prior to this mixtape, Chance developed a reputation for delivering guest features on tracks so showstopping that he outshone the artists on their own tracks. Bafflingly enough, throughout this tape, so many guest verses surpass Chance’s own that it leads one to question whether or not the album would be better off without them. On the track “Mixtape,” Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Lil Yachty both outperform Chance, delivering interesting and varied verses that feel perfectly suited for the trap-influenced beat, while Chance’s lazy, repetitive flow seems more of an imitation of a style than a genuine performance.
His steady stream of features and loose tracks also show his growth as a man, particularly with regard to fatherhood. In his recent feature on Macklemore’s album This Unruly Mess I’ve Made, Chance speaks of his daughter, saying that “I cry when she smile with her eyes closed/I’m already afraid of tight clothes/I want all her best friends to be white folks.” He’s no longer only responsible for himself; now he’s got a daughter to raise and bring into the world.
Chance also inexplicably uses auto-tune throughout Coloring Book, something he did not do on either of his two previous releases. It seems that when artists known for their use of auto-tune are featured on his tracks, Chance starts to use it as well. From “No Problem” with Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz to “Mixtape” with Yachty and Thug, or even “Smoke Break” with Future, Chance’s auto-tune seems forced and limits his vocal performance, rather than being used in non-traditional ways (as the aforementioned artists frequently do). On “Smoke Break,” Chance leads the first two verses, and as the novelty of the auto-tune wears off, Future joins in, immediately reminding the listener why Future has had such massive success using auto-tune as an instrument. Future’s mumbly, subdued flow and energetic yet pained delivery immediately make me wish this was a Future song that Chance was featured on instead.
My favorite song on the entire mixtape is one that didn’t make the official release. Due to a sample clearance issue, “Grown Ass Kid” leaked hours before the release of the tape but was not on the official tracklist. Had it been cleared, Chance said in his Reddit AMA, it would have been track 11, and it’s a damn shame that it wasn’t because “Grown Ass Kid” is the best song on the tape by far. The groovy, infectious beat has a simple kick drum pattern and a perfectly placed bassline doesn’t overpower the verses but still shines on its own. Chicago rappers Mick Jenkins and Alex Wiley have stupendous, poignant verses. Jenkin’s deep, rich vocal delivery perfectly accents the bright, almost squeaky quality in the sample, and Wiley is hungry and aggressive, fighting for his place on the song and not settling for anything less. This song, oddly enough, is one where Chance isn’t overshadowed by his features. Chance’s verse is topical, technically intricate, and his flow is more interesting than most other songs on the tape.
Each thing that’s done right on this mixtape is spectacular and leaves me begging for more, but the weak spots on the tape tarnish the many high points. Coloring Book seems to be perfectly balanced between the splendid and the mediocre. For every breathtaking Jay Electronica or Future verse, there’s a forced hook or a 2 Chainz assertion that “I’m so high, me and God dappin’.” Where you have world-class production on songs like “All Night,” you also get extremely sloppy mixing on the intro track, “All We Got,” where the chorus and West are jarringly louder than the rest of the song.
Coloring Book is by no means a bad project, but after hearing the nearly perfect Acid Rap and three years of show-stopping features and performances, it’s clear that this mixtape is nowhere near the best work that Chance can do.
Rating: 3.5/5
