Chance The Rapper has lost a lot of people since Acid Rap. But why? Is it because he’s sober?

I think that narrative doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Chance was doing Xanax during Acid Rap, but when he moved to LA in 2014, he became addicted to Xanax and it hindered the quality of his music. From his 2016 GQ Profile:

I was Xanned out every fucking day. I was just fucking tweaking. I was a Xan-zombie, fucking not doing anything productive and just going through relationship after relationship after relationship. Mind you, this is six months. So think about, like, how could you even do that?”

And Chance isn’t sober. He still smokes weed (see “Smoke Break”), he still drinks (“All Night”). It’s unclear if he still does acid, but given that it’s not addictive I would not be surprised if he still does.

The real problem people are having with Chance has to do with this widely-cited Elvis Costelle quote:

you have 20 years to write your first album and you have six months to write your second one.

What lead to Chance’s purported downfall was moving to LA and being famous. Rapping about being famous and being as positive as Chance is tends to be boring because being famous is fucking weird and becoming very wealthy should make you feel uncomfortable. Ignoring that stuff tends to make you pretty boring (this isn’t a universal rule).

Another problem is that with Acid Rap, the bars were always centered, whereas with his work since then, he’s focused on other things. He raps a lot more, much faster, and there’s a lot to dig into on Acid Rap. It seems unlikely that this is because of the drugs he was taking at the time. Some exceptions to this include Israel (his magnum opus), Miracle, Warm Enough, Rememory, How Great, Blessings (Reprise), Heaven Only Knows, and Suitcase. Just listening to these songs and then something like Blessings you can see what I’m talking about. The former are very much like that fast Acid Rap flow we all know and love.

He also shifted towards what everybody else is doing after Coloring Book. Especially with Coloring Book. See: Some Break with Future, No Problem with Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz, Mixtape with Lil Yachty and Young Thug, etc. These songs are not bad, but they don’t sound like Chance songs, you could replace him with any other rapper and it would fit. It seems like Chance got the opportunity to collaborate with Coloring Book is similar to much of Graduation or The Life of Pablo in that regard. Chance made most of Coloring Book in two month after having worked with Kanye (and written on five songs that made the album) on the Pablo sessions, this definitely influenced the “I’m going to do a bunch of songs with famous rappers who want to collab with me now” nature of much of the project.

While not following the Acid Rap template, Chance has made some pretty great songs since then. Summer Friends, No Better Blues, Cold Stares, Hiatus (Broadcast), Glam, Broad Shoulders, Fight Or Flight, All My Friends and Show Me Love all demonstrate he can make quality music that’s not confined to the Acid Rap flow.

Another problem for Old Chance Fans™ is that there are more people that dig Coloring Book than Acid Rap because of how much he grew in popular in that timespan and the fact that Old Chance Fans™ consider the music to be less good doesn’t make it less accessible, it often makes it more accessible. Chance doesn’t have an incentive to appease the old fans. In the words of Jay-Z: “Niggas want my old shit, buy my old albums”

Another notable thing is that Acid Rap is more relatable to the demo of Old Chance Fans™ than Coloring Book is. Y’all don’t like Jesus or have a kid. Y’all are high school and college students or in your 20s and not married, religious or a father. Acid Rap is also religious but that’s conveyed in a way that catches this Old Chance Fans™ demo more.

Another odd point that I’ve come across is the idea that Chance started making gospel-infused music with Coloring Book, Acid Rap is heavily gospel influenced. The difference between the first song on Acid Rap and the first song on Coloring Book is that the former is influenced (literally sampling a 2003 Kanye song) by first 3 album Kanye and the second is ruined by current Kanye with Chance emulating current Kanye as well to the same “not as good” effect.

If you cut the 808s to Yeezus period out of Kanye’s discography. Chance maps onto Kanye pretty well. Acid Rap is pre-808s and Coloring Book is post-Yeezus. Like Chance, Kanye started to rap worse after Graduation (kinda transitional similar to Surf), if you’re confused by this sentence read the first one of this graph again. Post-Yeezus Kanye also merged into the mainstream sound (Graduation was a transitional period here too). Kanye also similarly started rapping about fame in a much more boring way after Yeezus. Yeezus has bad lyrics but doesn’t really fit a lot of the other stuff in this graph that’s why we’re excluding it. Kanye did the same gospel infusing but with bad rapping and merged with the mainstream sound. Kanye has simply gotten sloppier and more rushed, whereas Chance’s lyrical decline appears very deliberate.

So in summation, if Kanye retired after the Taylor Swift incident or MBDTF, Chance’s music would be much better than if he was still taking acid. Acid wouldn’t change the things described above.

Chance is not a lost cause though, he said that he wrote his best verse in May and last year he released The Man Who Has Everything, I Might Need Security and 65th and Ingleside, all featuring some pretty solid and well thought out rapping reminiscent of the Acid Rap style. That’s a good indication that he’s prioritizing lyrics more.Groceries has sent some mixed messages.

One last point, not only is the Acid Rap flow a vital part of understanding Chance’s alleged decline. The percentage of songs that Chance is doing vocals has drastically reduced since Acid Rap.

Quick Notes:

The Big Day only came out four days ago and I haven’t listened to it enough to really comment, this was also originally written prior to the release. I personally don’t think Chance’s decline is as dramatic as has others have made it out to be (Don’t get me fired from MTV, Chance). My personal ratings are: