Why Chance the Rapper’s New Album was a FLOP

graphic by marcy wolfsberg

It looks like Kanye has company. In the rap world, Chance the Rapper was known for his happy and wholesome persona. Compared to other chart-topping rappers, he brought light-hearted fun and represented his city well. He brought balance to the typical, dark “mumble-rap” crowd in the rap world. We love a rapper with a positive influence. But, it can go too far.

The Big Day was Chance’s first studio album, marking a step up in his career. The central theme was his marriage, meaning every song had some expression of how much he loved his wife. However, it was received with much more criticism than his last mixtapes, and Twitter promptly blew up with thousands of people trashing his album. People called it corny and mediocre at best. Although underwhelming to those on the internet, many reviewers gave it a decent to good score—Pitchfork actually gave it a 6.9. Maybe us college students don’t know what it’s like to actually love your special partner.

That said, the corniness pushed away some of his previous fans who thought this album was a step down from his older work. Also, there was something genuine missing from the new album. Most of his lyrics were lacking the wit and spunk they did on his previous mixtapes such as Acid Rap and Coloring Book. Those projects were lyrically amazing. For example, in the song “All We Got” on Coloring Book, he said:

“Man my daughter couldn’t have a better mother. If she ever find another, he better love her. Man I swear my life is perfect, I could merch it. If I die I’ll prolly cry at my own service, igh, igh!”

He spoke about love and commitment with finesse and humor unlike the simplicity of his new album. Some newer lyrics from the song “The Big Day” include:

“Still wanna, drink it, fuck it, drink it, drink it, fuck it, shoot it I don’t wanna, just get it, get it, get it, get it.”

Ouch. Not the same. His oldest projects also represented an era of teenage angst and drug-fueled rebellion, which The Big Day just does not have. There were only a few creative standouts from the album, like “Handsome” and “Ballin Flossin”, which reminded us of why we fell in love with Chance. Sadly, Chance did not respond well to these claims. He tweeted, “I’m getting this crazy feeling that people want me to kill myself .” Obviously the criticism got to him in the wrong way. We love you Chance, but we were just underwhelmed.