Between 2012 and 2016, Chicago youngster Chance The Rapper went from mild mixtape-circuit renown to titanic mainstream fame. He was on Ellen all the damn time! Everyone loved him! We loved him! That came to a screeching halt in 2019, when Chance released his first proper major-label album The Big Day. It was an absolute unalloyed catastrophe, and it erased all the goodwill that Chance had built to that point, allowing the inevitable backlash to drown any potential that Chance ever had. Now, after six years of one-off singles and false starts, Chance The Rapper is finally back with a new album.
Chance has been talking up his new LP Star Line for some time, and it comes out today. Chance doesn't really try to reinvent himself on Star Line. Instead, he digs deep into what once worked, tapping his old crew of Chicago collaborators, including Vic Mensa, Jamila Woods, BJ The Chicago Kid, Smino, and producers like Nico Segal and Peter CottonTale. Lil Wayne, Young Thug, Jay Electronica, Jazmine Sullivan, Joey Bada$$, BabyChiefDoIt, TiaCorine, and Lion Babe also make appearances. The first guest-spot goes to '90s Chicago legends Do Or Die, which is cool. Maybe I'm just in a good mood this morning, but this is kind of working for me right now.
It's not that Star Line never gets cloying. It definitely does. Chance gets into gospel-speechifying mode, and I used to have a much higher tolerance for that. Now, I tune out when Chance arrives there. But Chance is good at that stuff, and his warm, crackly singing voice can still glow. Before he arrives at all that stuff, though, Chance gives himself a few moments to rap his ass off, and he can really still do that. Also, look at that cover! He's got a new hat! A new kind of hat, even! Listen to the album below.
The self-released Star Line is out now.
