Chance the Rapper’s “The Big Day” is a solid continuation of what we have seen from his previous project “Coloring Book”
Chicago rapper, Chance the Rapper looks to follow up the success of his third project “Coloring Book” with the release of his debut album, “The Big Day.” Chance the Rapper has made a name for himself in Hip-Hop with the use of soulful, upbeat sounds to pair with his distinct voice and adlibs. Despite not releasing a project in three years, Chance has managed to stay relevant and busy, appearing on many big songs, most notably, DJ Khaled’s “No Brainer” along with Justin Bieber and Quavo in July 2018. With the release of “Coloring Book” in 2016, Chance blasted himself into the mainstream with songs like “All We Got” featuring Kanye West and the Chicago Children’s Choir, as well as “No Problem” featuring 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne. Fast forward to 2019, and Chance finally looks to take his combination of talents and put them towards a debut album. “The Big Day” lists 22 tracks equating to 1 hour and 17 minutes of music, with no listed features. With this, Chance the Rapper takes a page out of the books of Travis Scott and 21 Savage, not listing their features. This exemplifies a strategy to get fans to listen to a full body of work by taking away the ability for fans to just click on songs they may think they like because of the listed features on the song. Now without further ado, let’s get to the review!
Categories
The songs on this album divided into four lanes that are prevalent throughout the project and scored on a 1.5 scale. (0 = trash, .5 = not for me, 1 = good, 1.5 = a standout)
Songs with features
• “All Day Long” ft. John Legend
• “Do You Remember” ft. Benjamin Gibbard
• “Eternal” ft. Smino
• “Hot Shower” ft. DaBaby & MadeinTYO
• “I Got You (Always and Forever)” ft. Ari Lennox
• “Roo” ft. CocoRosie & Taylor Bennett
• “The Big Day” ft. Francis and the Lights
• “Let’s Go on the Run” ft. Knox Fortune
• “Handsome” ft. Megan Thee Stallion
• “Big Fish” ft. Gucci Mane
• “Ballin Flossin” ft. Shawn Mendes
• “5 Year Plan” ft. Randy Newman
• “Get a Bag” ft. CalBoy
• “Slide Around” ft. Nicki Minaj & Lil Durk
• “Zanies and Fools” ft. Nicki Minaj
The Soulful Bops
Upbeat soulful beats with rap verses with a fast flow and a beautiful hook
• “All Day Long” ft. John Legend (1.5)
• “I Got You (Always and Forever)” ft. Ari Lennox (1)
• “Found A Good One (Single No More)” (1)
• “Zanies and Fools” ft. Nicki Minaj (1)
The Slow Down bops
Slow beats that give an at the moment feel accompanied by verses with a slow easy to follow flow
• “Do You Remember” ft. Benjamin Gibbard (1)
• “Eternal” ft. Smino (.5)
• “We Go High” (.5)
• “Roo” ft. CocoRosie & Taylor Bennett (1)
• “5 Year Plan” ft. Randy Newman (1)
• “Get a Bag” ft. CalBoy (.5)
• “Sun Come Down” (1)
• “Town On The Hill” (.5)
Give Trap a Chance
Trap beats that rely on bass and high hats to establish the tempo
• Hot Shower” ft. DaBaby & MadeinTYO (1)
• “Handsome” ft. Megan Thee Stallion (1)
• “Big Fish” ft. Gucci Mane (1)
• “Slide Around” ft. Nicki Minaj & Lil Durk (1)
Giving Alternative Genres a Chance?
Chance branches out into other genres besides Hip-Hop
• “The Big Day” ft. Francis and the Lights (.5)
• “Let’s Go on the Run” ft. Knox Fortune (.5)
• “Ballin Flossin” ft. Shawn Mendes (.5)
Skits
• “Photo Ops”
• “4 Quarters in the Black”
• “Our House”
Must Listen Songs
The concept of Must Listen songs are the songs that would give the best overview of the album as a whole. Songs that stand out for reasons to be described in the pending descriptions of the songs.
“All Day Long” ft. John Legend
The intro track to Chance the Rapper’s debut album, “The Big Day” is a fast-paced beauty. The beat produced by Peter Cottontale, Nico Segal, Nate Fox, Greg Landfair, Eric Butler, Dwayne Verner Jr, DeMartis “Sax” Williams, Darius Scott and Chance the Rapper is a beautiful piano filled beat with many moving parts, the most prevalent being the bass and high hats that set the tempo for Chance to rap in his verses. Both verses from Chance are straight fire, however, John Legend steals the show with his singing on the hook. This is a masterful intro track, simply because of the many moving parts that come together perfectly to create this product.
“I Got You (Always and Forever)” ft. Ari Lennox
Track six to “The Big Day” opens up with Dreamville’s Ari Lennox singing her heart out on the intro before the beat produced by Eric Butler, Garren Langford, Dwayne Verner Jr, Peter Cottontale, Nico Segal, Carter Lang, Nate Fox, TrapMoneyBenny & Chance the Rapper drops. The beat’s kick, bassline, and melody are one that is reminiscent of an RnB beat in the ’90s, which changes with the addition of a modern bass when Chance raps on his verses leading to the mashing of decades that works perfectly.
“Slide Around” ft. Nicki Minaj & Lil Durk
The seventeenth track on Chance’s “The Big Day” is a Pi’erre Bourne beat in collaboration with Nate Fox and Chance the Rapper. The beat has the standard fast-paced high hats that are characteristic of a Pi’erre Bourne beat, along with the tempo of the bass. Nicki Minaj shined on this beat, showing her ability to change her flow at will and remain on the beat. Lil Durk also did well on this beat using his cadence to essentially slide on this Pi’erre beat.
“Sun Come Down”
Track number eighteen on “The Big Day” produced by Nate Fox, Peter Cottontale, Nico Segal, Dwayne Verner Jr, Eric Butler, Chance the Rapper, Gabe Jaskowiak, Darius Scott, Charlie Handsome & Smoko Ono is an uncharacteristic song for Chance. On this song, Chance raps about his requests at his funeral, still putting his positive spin on the topic. Here Chance separates his family from people who are just bandwagoning him because of his success saying “I don't want nobody to be at my wedding, That won't be there for my marriage.” The content sets the vibe for this song, as well as the simple piano and high hat beat.
Final Review
Chance the Rapper’s “The Big Day” is a solid continuation of what we have seen from his previous project “Coloring Book.” Going into this album, I didn’t have many expectations for Chance except for him to stay consistent because of how established he is already which was met as he showed why he has cultivated such a big fanbase. However, 22 tracks are simply too many tracks especially when 7 out of those 22 tracks are over four minutes long. I found my getting fatigued towards the end of the album because of the length of the album as a whole as well as the length of many songs. The use of skits throughout the album worked well especially the first skit, “Photo Ops,” about brothers who seem to be frequently at odds with each other which directly led into the song after it, “Roo” featuring Taylor Bennett (Chance’s brother) and CocoRosie. Towards the middle of the album specifically between tracks 9 – 13, Chance tried new sounds which I didn’t think worked well, while also throwing the vibe of the album off. The production throughout was amazing, however, some features didn’t fit with the vibe established at the beginning of the album, which hurt the quality of the album in my opinion. Overall, “The Big Day” is a good album, however, its length hurts its ability to be played back to front again.
Scoring
Raw Score: The number of good songs on a project versus the overall amount. Songs must have a 1 or above to be counted.
Quality Score: The total amount of points accumulated over the total amount of songs.
Playback value: The resonance an album is perceived to have if played again in full. Scale out of 5.
Raw Score: 12/19
Quality Score: 17.5/19
Playback Value: 2/5
Go out and listen to Chance the Rapper’s “The Big Day” wherever you listen to your music. Also, don’t forget to check out OLDMLK’s Instagram page (@OLDMLK) and Twitter (@OLDMLKDOTCOM) for updates on OLDMLK.COM: The Most Essential Hip Hop Blog, The OLDMLK.Com Playlist, The OLDMLK Radar and more! Don’t Know it? Oldmlk Does!
