Chicago's very own Chance The Rapper has gone from a relatively overlooked MC, to being featured on Pitchfork and many music blogs around the net for his latest mixtape; Acid Rap.
And the hype is justified, mostly; Acid Rap is a pretty stand-out mixtape. Songs like the opener and "Cocoa Butter Kisses", are extremely well produced and have killer hooks, and Chance has some clever wordplay to boot; with the hook on "Cocoa Butter Kisses" musing about how his addiction to cigarettes causes strain in his every day relationships ( "cigarettes on cigarettes, my momma think I stink/ I got burn holes in my hoodies/ my homeboys think it's dank").
Other standouts include the fun "Nana" and "Juice". However, the highlight of this LP is "Everybody's Something", it combines the best of Chance's talents into a singularly amazing song about how "everybody's somebody's everything", with a great chorus featuring singing by Chance himself; a skill he flaunts all over "Acid Rap".
After that track, the album finds Chance falling into some unfortunate rap cliches and poor hooks. While the production on a track like "My Favorite Song" is bright and fun, the vapid chorus is enough to make the prospect of repeat listens a little foreboding. The worst offender though, is the track "Smoke Again ft. Ab-Soul", and that's a little sad, because while he's not my favorite rapper from the TDE collective; Ab is usually a much more profound lyricist; I mean, the line "let me put my mouth where you potty, boo" is downright
amateur.
It happens every three months or so; a young MC comes out with a killer single and thus the entire mixtape receives a lot of attention, only to have that project be mediocre at best. Luckily, like Big K.R.I.T or Kendrick Lamar, Chance The Rapper has managed to put together a fun, sometimes fantastic mixtape that shows a lot of promise for an upstart MC.
8.0/10
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