Few up-and-coming rappers can deliver a live show quite like Chance The Rapper. Chance boasts an incredible set of pipes, a near amphibious lung capacity, and a fully live jazz band, fellow Chi-town natives, The Social Experiment.
At the Summer Ends Music Festival, Chance performed a live cover of Kanye West’s Family Business to honour the birth of his daughter. Chance more than does justice to the Kanye classic, adding his own brand of awkward charm. Now he’s given us a studio recording, complete with visuals that splice colourfully edited home movies with footage from the electric live show. You can’t help but “awwww” when an image of a young Chancellor Bennett shimmying in junior theatre is juxtaposed with the fully-grown performer serenading a stadium.
Taking his show to Austin City Limits, one fan captured footage of a brand new track. The new song has an appreciation for trap, and the current state of ambient house music. But it’s still pure Chance, with saxophone jazz and his hallmark warbling. Given that Chance used the performance to hint at a possible third glorious mixtape, I am going to speculate wildly and say that the mystery track will appear on Chance’s latest offering.
This has been a busy year for Chance, having already dropped two projects this year: Surf a collaboration with his band, the Social Experiment, and the bizarre Lil B side project Free (Based Styles Mixtape). Given Chances’ commitment to his unsigned status and producing totally independent mixtapes, it’s looking more and more doubtful that we’ll see an official studio album in the near future.