In 2014, when Chance The Rapper was tapped to be a part of XXL’s Freshman class, he had to participate in the tradition of recording a freestyle video. A few bars performed under the presumed guise of being off-the-cuff, these freestyles are typically fine but rarely particularly incredible. Yet something about Chance’s was unshakeable. The video opens with the camera lingering on his clasped arms, and he belts out a hymnal that you could imagine a grandmother singing to herself as she wanders about the house: Ice melting in my chain, pretty as my hair, ugly as my name. He follows this with a joyful, almost slam poetry-like testimonial of God’s grace on his life: That’s my G, he got me shinin’/ My hair, he made it tangled/ My seed, don’t need no lining/ A halo fits on an angel. He’s joyful in this moment, animated in his blackness and because of God’s grace in his life.

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That same joyfulness is what powers Coloring Book, Chance’s follow-up to 2013’s Acid Rap. From the outset, the album is sweeping and grand. The opening track “All We Got,” featuring Kanye West and the Chicago Children’s Choir, starts with the thunderous arrival of heaven’s trumpets, welcoming listeners in with pure glee and a warm embrace. In this moment, Chance is both MC and motivational speaker, exciting and inspiring at once. This for the kids of the king of all king/ This is the holiest thing/ This is the beat that played under the word, he raps with fervor. When Kanye’s chorus comes in and he sings Music is all we got, the feeling that pours forth is the rare kind of syrupy-rich elation that you may have experienced as a child: giddy with happiness, eyes and ears wide, taking in the world’s fullness all at once.

A lot of the album’s joy is captured through this kind of teamwork: like last year’s Social Experiment album Surf, Coloring Book feels like a collaborative album on which Chance is the bandleader. He galvanized singers like D.R.A.M., T-Pain, and Eryn Allen Kane, trap rappers like Young Thug and Future, a children’s choir and gospel impresario Kirk Franklin—he even found rap’s Where’s Waldo, Jay Electronica—in an effort to use their talents in the most functional way, each artist helping to situate the energy and warmness of the record.

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At Coloring Book’s base is religion. With strong Christian overtones and biblical references, the message is one of salvation; it praises the Lord purely for the opportunity to be alive. It’s reminiscent of Sundays spent at church when a young adult choir might perform and an entire church might be moved by a pastor’s sermon. Religion can be alienating and even off-putting to some, but Coloring Book’s primary interest is to bring about the kind of joy that church brings for so many people. The chest-thumping “No Problem,” the exhilarating bounciness of “Angels,” the goosebumps that manifest when you hear the choir in “How Great”—it all inspires a spirit of uplift like that of church, where you dance, shout, wave your hands back and forth, you do something with your body and you can’t explain why but something about being in this place, with this music and these people is causing you to cast out your burdens and delight in celebration. The same kind of celebration Kirk Franklin & God’s Property achieved, when you didn’t know gospel could sound like this, Chance has brought to a rap record.