Chance The Rapper is an up and coming hip hop artist that has come a long way these past few years. Chance The Rapper dropped his first mixtape “10 Day” on April 3rd 2012. The album was inspired by his 10 day suspension in college. He was caught with marijuana and his teachers didn’t believe in his musical career. He released his song “Windows” before the album was available on DatPiff. “10 Day” was being downloaded about 300,000 times a day. MTV was playing his music and showing his videos, but he still wasn’t mainstream. Chance The Rapper was making a name for himself as a “different” kind of rapper. No one could put their finger on it just yet though. It was clear that he was artistic and had more to offer. We just had to stick around to see what it was. Chance The Rapper’s career slowly unfolded as we watched closely. He released another album shortly after his first one to keep us all interested.
Chance The Rapper’s second mixtape “Acid Rap” was released on April 30th 2013. It was also released on DatPiff, but this time Chance The Rapper had some company. Although he wasn’t mainstream other rappers were getting to know him. He had some features on his second mixtape from well known artist. The features included artist like Childish Gambino, Twista, Action Bronson, Vic Mensa and more. Acid Rap really put Chance The Rapper on the map just they way he wanted it to. He received a lot of great reviews on this project. He received a “universal acclaim” by critics that reviewed this project. Chance The Rapper was receiving a lot of media attention shortly afterwards. MySpace relaunched their website having it geared more towards music artist. They asked Chance The Rapper to be in the commercial as part of their relaunch campaign.
2014 was also a great year for Chance The Rapper. He made the XXL freshman class list, which is a huge deal in the hip hop industry. Other well known hip hop artist such as Ty Dolla $ign, August Alsina, Vic Mensa, Lil Durk, Kevin Gates, and Rich Homie Quan just to name a few made the list as well. This is something that every new rap artist wants to be apart of. Making that list is considered to be a high honor. He also joined a college campus concert tour that year, which kept him busy. College tours are great for new artist, because it gives you a sort of “training” for world tours. That was a big accomplishment as well. To top it off Rahm Emanuel, the Mayor of his hometown Chicago gave him the “outstanding Youth Of The Year Award”. Chance The Rapper also took a chance at acting a bit. Dockers asked him to play a part of an online video promoting their new spring line.
Shortly after that amazing year Chance The Rapper was featured on the “Forbes 30 under 30” 2015 music list in January 2015. This is another list that music artist strive to get on. The word was spreading fast about Chance The Rapper and his new style and sound of hip hop. In April of that same year he gave a lecture at Harvard University’s Hip Hop Archive and Research Institute. Chance also starred in a film called “Mr Happy” about a young man dealing with depression and finding happiness after many failed suicide attempts. The film was directed by the famously known music video director Colin Tilley. Right before joining the stage at Bonnaroo music fest in Tennessee, Chance released his album “Surf” which was actually released for free on iTunes. While at Bonnaroo he shared the stage with Kendrick Lamar and Earth, Wind, & Fire.
At the end of that year Chance The Rapper was asked to perform at SNL making him the first independent artist to ever perform on the show. In 2016 Chance co-wrote “Waves”, “Famous”, “Feedback”, and “Father Stretch My Hands Pt.1” for Kanye West newest album “The Life Of Pablo” which was the very much anticipated album from Kanye West that everyone was waiting for. The album did extremely well. That put Chance The Rapper’s talents upfront and center, so people could see how skilled and gifted he is as an artist. This also made the anticipation for his new mixtape. “Coloring Book” is Chance The Rappers latest project. It was released on May 12, 2016. This album gained a whole new audience for Chance The Rapper. The way he mixed hip hop and gospel to show his Christian faith is something no other rap artist has done. Kanye West plays with religion and music in a great way with his music, but Chance took it to a new level. The whole album is an equal mix of his music and his faith. Making Chance The Rapper stand out alone for his creative genius.