Michael Kolar: You feel vindicated in a certain way with a project like this. At that point in Chicago, it felt like so many people outside of the city were focused on one type of music coming from here: drill. And I love drill and have recorded so many things by Young Chop, Lil Durk, and others, but I remember being out on trips to New York and having those people only focus on those acts. I’d say Chicago is just getting started. I look back at that time of Chance and all of his music friends finding their sound and there was so much creativity, innocence, and in some ways, naivete. It was such a happy time and I had such a good vibe from that era with all these young people coming together and working and showing that Chicago is a city of unity. I was the older guy remembering a very different era in this city and that was so refreshing.

Andrew Barber: It was time to let everyone know that there was this new, equally exciting generation showing an alternative side of Chicago. It was so exciting and Chance just kicked all the doors down. Chicago was completely on the map at that point. I remember during the 2012 Chicago boom, where labels were signing artists left and right, someone was telling me that Chicago hip-hop would be a flash in the pan and we should just enjoy our moment. They were so wrong. You couldn’t stop it. Chicago is no one-trick pony and Chance really shook things up. He didn’t even need to sign. From that first day, he had a plan.

Na’el Shehade: It’s historic. When you’re an artist and you have that first project that gets you to where you want to be, you can never duplicate that. To be a part of that history was amazing. There was a select few who were a part of it. A lot of artists have come to me to ask if they can do what Chance did and while it’s possible, he had everything necessary and everything aligned for him. It wasn’t about the money. It was secondary to what everyone wanted. It just revolved around the music. It’s the best project I’ve ever worked on in my life.

Austin Vesely: It’s hard to believe. It was a really important time in my life. You can’t underestimate how rare it is to see someone so close to you become a superstar in your own eyes. I believed in him and that’s why I worked with him so much early on. A year goes by and Chance was more than he was at the beginning and it just keeps going exponentially. I remember when it came out, I’d just bump it on Lake Shore Drive and beyond him just being my friend, it was incredible music.

Nate Fox: Five years later, I’m just blown away. During the time we made it, although it all felt special, I don’t think any of us had a clue how impactful it would be on our lives and on other people’s lives. I definitely have received more personal messages from fans about Acid Rap songs than anything else I’ve worked on. There are a lot of albums that came out five years ago but there is something about Chance, Acid Rap, and all the people who worked on it that the story is way deeper than just a regular full-length.

Twista: I knew something like this would happen in Chicago. That was no surprise to me because Chicago is so diverse. What else would you expect to get from the middle of the map? I’m hearing so much different music from here but Chance was able to combine all of those sounds. I’m so glad to be a part of something so historic, to watch his growth, and also see him stay true to himself. He’s so charismatic and needs that freedom to create.

Vic Mensa: It was like our own Harlem Renaissance in Chicago. There were just so many talented people really just making music that completely unrelated to what was commercially popular at the time. It was special because we didn’t even think about that. It never occurred to us that we should be catering to that. Around that same time you had drill break through too. It really felt like Chicago was on top of the world.

Lili K: It’s crazy to see how much it did. For me personally, I have a slightly different experience because there were some issues with proper crediting after it came out. Like, it’s so weird and sometimes pretty funny because so many people I’ve met have heard me sing but they don’t know that it’s me. I’m still super honored and super proud to be a part of it, and looking back it’s so clear that Chance killed it and made a really amazing career out of it. Overall, it’s a positive experience and it was so great to be a small part of this new Chicago wave.

Vic Mensa: That time period was special, man. I don’t want to say that we were naive but we were all so ambitious. Everything was a hustle and there were no resources. We were just trying to record in any studio we could, doing features for a couple hundred bucks and scraping change out of my mama’s couch to get together money for studio time.

Austin Vesely: I look back on that time as just it being the halcyon days of being a kid. I don’t know how Chance feels exactly but to me it seems like that was the last time he was afforded that amount of freedom where he could just run around and be a kid. People weren’t expecting what he could come up with and he definitely blew everyone away. You hear how much it’s changed in that song he put out last year, “First World Problems.” This time was such a nice memory.

Nico Segal: I keep coming back to when Chance came down to Kids These Days’ studio at the Music Garage and played 5 Day for us for the first time. It made us want to go out and pass mixtapes around downtown with him. That was a big thing for me and how we looked at passing around music and how literal it is having our music pass from one hand to another. We get lost in that in the internet world. That was never our mentality: Our mentality now is the same as it was when we were passing out those burned CDs, except multiplied for the internet. We really want to talk to people and we really want to engage with them and have them know that we’re like them. Acid Rap had a lot to do with how we all think about putting out music and had such a huge impact on all of our lives. My friend killed it.