All The Blessings

Chance the Rapper featuring 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne “No Problem”

The best word I’ve seen used to describe Chance’s music, particularly his third record Coloring Book, is jubilant. He’s working in a genre that goes heavy on party music, but he’s the guy in rap who sounds like he’s truly celebrating all the time. Celebrating life, celebrating God, celebrating family and love and creative independence and music and the past and the present and managing to survive against bleak odds. There’s a joy in his songs that is so strong and undiluted that I know some people can find it kinda corny and childish – one friend of mine who has generally good judgment dismissed Chance as sounding like Sesame Street rap, but hey, he’s a big Drake fan so I can see why he’d be defensive about the guy who’s basically set up to be the Nirvana to Drake and Future’s hair metal. I definitely welcome any sea change in hip-hop, especially if it’s a move towards joyful gospel and a richer, more harmonious sound after too many years of flagrant fuckboy bullshit over icy, depressive minimalism.

A lot of Coloring Book, particularly the sunny “No Problem,” call back to Kanye West’s most joyful ‘00s music, so it’s not exactly radical in the context of recent-ish rap history, but Chance’s character is substantially different. Kanye has always been at war with his own contradictions and conflicting social pressures, but Chance is a far more secure and coherent personality. He’s defined by this sense of clarity – he seems to know exactly who he is and what he wants and how to achieve his goals entirely on his own terms. Given that he’s mostly speaking to a generation of people who’ve built a lot of their identity around obsessing on anxiety disorders, his unshakeable certainty must seem like a superpower.

Get it from Apple Music.