Chance the Rapper was born “Chancelor Bennett” on April 16, 1993. He is a rapper from Chicago, Illinois. Chance’s style differs from most artists coming out of Chicago, whom tend to be focus on gangsta rap and trap music such as Chief Keef. Chance the Rapper’s music style is a mix of numerous genres, most notably jazz. Chance attended Chicago’s Jones College Prep High School.
Early life
Chance the Rapper developed a passion for music at an early age, while only a freshman in high school at Chicago’s Jones College Prep High School, he and a friend formed a duo called ‘Instrumentality’. Chance the Rapper didn’t listen to much hip hop songs growing up; he mostly listened to soul and jazz music, which explains his unique rap style. The first hip hop album Chance the Rapper listened to was ‘Dropout’ by fellow Chicago artist Kanye West.
Rap Career
Chance the Rapper’s aspirations of becoming a musician was often ridiculed by his teachers at Jones College Prep High School. While suspended for 10 day from his high school, Chance made good use of that time and created his first mixtape titled “10 day”. He used his punishment as both, a source of motivation and the title of the mixtape. His mixtape was a huge hit, it has been downloaded from Datpiff over 50,000 times.
His 10-day mixtape appeared on Forbes’ “Cheap Tunes”, which is an ongoing series about new music available for free or a small fee. Forbes described Chance the Rapper as “an artist who draws upon a pool of these musical elements and pieces them together into an accessible, fluid amalgamation”. Following the release of his first mixtape, Chance continued to release new music, and made guest appearances on songs with numerous other artists such as Childish Gambino, Hoodie Allen and Joey Bada$$, and he also played a part in the production of Snoop Dogg's single “Singh is King”.
Following the release of his first mixtape, Chance the Rapper started receiving praises from magazines and critics. In January, 2013 Chance was included in XXL Magazine’s 2013 Freshamn Class Nominees which is their annual list of up-and-coming rappers. Chance was also included in Complex Magazine’s “10 New Chicago Rappers to Watch Out For” list.
Chance the Rapper released his second mixtape “Acid Rap” on April 30, 2013. The mixtape featured a wide range of artists including Twista, BJ the Chicago Kid, Action Bronson, Childish Gambino and Ab-Soul. The mixtape was well received by critics and fans, the mixtap has been downloaded over 180,000 times on Datpiff’s website.