The music gods have answered our prayers: Chance the Rapper will soon be debuting his first official album. He recently appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to reveal the release date, album cover and title for the upcoming project.
He’s been in the music industry for a while, famously having made a name for himself without the help of a record label. He released his three mixtapes, 10 Day (2012), Acid Rap (2013), and Coloring Book (2016) independently, and even made a whole song about how record labels shouldn’t mess with him.
His hard work was given the credit it deserves when he became the first artist to win a Grammy based on a streaming-only project; as well as collaborating with fellow Chicago rapper and inspiration Kanye West on The Life of Pablo (2016).
Chano first teased his album back in February on Instagram when fans kept asking what’s the status of the project. All we had to go on was the promise that it would be coming in July.
He also took to Twitter to explain the new album will be a completely different sound to Coloring Book and Acid Rap.
I’ll always be immensely proud of what I did with Coloring Book. Same Drugs, Summer Friends and Juke Jam are some the realest songs I’ve ever written so u dont have to defend Coloring Book to me. It happened, it made history but I did it already. The album wont be acid rap either
— Chance The Rapper Album in July (@chancetherapper) February 12, 2019
Earlier in May, Chance released his first single of the year: ‘GRoCERIES’, featuring TisaKorean and Murda Beatz. Shortly after, he spoke to Zane Lowe on Beats 1 about the inspiration for his album: his wedding day to wife Kirsten Corley.
“The whole album has been inspired by the day that I got married and how I was dancing that day… It was the hardest I ever danced in my life and I’m a great longtime dancer. Everything in it is all the different styles of music that make me want to dance and remind me of that day and remind me of that night and all those people that were there… I’ve been waiting to make an album for a long time. So, the process has been just me being back in the studio all the time. Just making two songs a day. And trying to have fun. But at the same time, I understand that it’s going to be more. More songs. More flexes. More dancing. Just more.”
2019 has been a pretty busy year in general for the Chicago artist. Just last month he featured on YBN Cordae’s single ‘Bad Idea’, and even got himself a cameo in ‘The Lion King’ (2019) thanks to his “big bro Donald”.
The Big Day is currently available now for pre-order on chanceraps.com, and will be officially out on July 26. While we’re waiting, let’s also pray to the music gods he doesn’t forget about Australia when he announces his world tour…
Featured image via Instagram @hypebeast.
