And to me, his decline actually started with Coloring Book. I thought that Acid Rap was incredible. And a part of what made it special was that this young man had so distinctly had his own sound, his own well-developed style. The contemporary analog is Smino. On Coloring Book, he abandoned that. Instead of sounding and rapping like Chance, he sounded and rapped like whoever was on the track with him. He rapped like Wayne, he rapped like Future, he rapped like Thug. And not only that, it was where he pivoted real hard toward religion. On Acid Rap, he's questioning his faith and on Coloring Book he's talking about "how great is my God..."
It's still a good project, but no where near as compelling as Acid Rap, in my opinion.

The Big Day though, it's damn near unlistenable. And as a person who followed Chance pretty closely during that period, his relationship and marriage always seemed... forced. They weren't a couple until she got pregnant. At the time, it looked a whole lot like Chance did not, especially with his new found devotion, want to have a child out of wedlock. The Big Day in it's construction actually gives hints toward this. As much as the meme has become "I love my wife, igh!" That's not far off. Throughout the album he talks about loving her so much, she's so great this, so wonderful that, but he never goes beyond the surface. He never says anything interesting about her, doesn't really go into why he loves her, doesn't talk about their relation more than "I love my wife!" It's almost like he was just trying to convince everyone, including himself, that he loved her to that degree.

I don't think that he can't recover from that album per say, but a lot of people have really soured on Chance and the new tracks don't seem to have been bringing that many people back. And as far as the new songs themselves are concerned... he's been rapping really well... but it still feels like there's something missing. The pen is sharp but the soul is dull. I'll check Star Line Gallery whenever it finally drops, but I'm not hotly anticipating it or anything like that.

--

"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."