Chance The Rapper - Coloring Book

Chance The Rapper
Coloring Book
2016
Spotify

You can almost plot the development of Chance the Rapper from the beginning and watch his evolution into one of the greats. There have been moments when you expected it to be Chance's time but instead He would usually sharp shoot from somewhere on high. Murder a verse and then fade away but on Coloring Book and in life Chance is here to stay. For Him now music is no longer something He does, instead it is something He is. That is why this record has so much soul, because Chance finally find a way to get what Has always been there on to wax. There are no more songs about acid or smoking cigarettes, not that there is anything wrong with songs about those things, but in it's place are tracks about relationships, death and re-birth. As a vocalist in a hip hop world Chance is positioning himself as the absolute best. When Kanye sings it's ok, but it's not what you want, when Chance does it it is exactly what you never know you needed. He moves so effortlessly between rap and crooning, it really is something to behold. The comparisons to Kanye almost write themselves as both this and The Life of Pablo have strong gospel themes and almost the same delivery but Chance is the better lyricist and the better vocalist for that matter. His sound is just totally effortless and spills from him in this very beautiful way.

Chance's fierce independence has also been one of his greatest strengths since the beginning. Coloring Book was released completely on his own, but it sounds like the biggest label in the world had to be backing this. He calls them all out on "No Problem" saying: "If one more label try to stop me/It's gon' be some dread-head n-ggas in your lobby." On "Juke Jam" we get Justin Bieber singing the hook and it is one of the more laid back songs on the entire record. It does not have the same punch as the rest, and really doesn't feel like it belongs. Chance looses a bit of his intense pace and firery lyrics around "Juke Jam" but the Kaytranada produced "All Night" brings you right back in. It is a stellar track that features elements of Chicago House and Chance letting fully loose lyrically and even bringing in some of his classic jokes. If you can't picture the bell-bottoms and roller rink while listening to this track then you are not doing it right. "Smoke Break" with a minuscule feature from Future is the one overtly drug song on the record, and has this light and happy quality talking about the benefits of normal human drug use rather than demonizing or glorifying the culture that surrounds it. It is about to people connecting featuring some substances and is a progressive and the right way we should be talking about these things. Coloring Book will go down as one of the best albums of 2016, perhaps of the past few years, and that is a lot to say when Kendrick, Kanye and Drake have all laid their claim to that title. Sorry folks Chance stays winning.

9.5 out of 10