Hiphopology
By Zihan Liu (Samuel)
Chance the rapper: “the big day”
Chance the rapper, once one of the hottest topics in the hip circle, released his second mixtape Acid Rap in 2013. Soon afterward, he met his famous talent scout Kanye West, resulting in the production of 6 songs. He always remained to be an independent musician, receiving many endorsements and commercial performances throughout his fame. Skipping forward to 2016, he released his third mixtape Coloring Book, which gained enough attention to receive three Grammy awards. This put him at the peak of his hip-hop career. In 2017, one of his quotes, a quite infamous one, blew up on social media, stating: “I met Kanye West and I never gonna fail”. To this day, this feature can be found in the innovative song titled “Ultralight Beam”. Little did the world know that this would soon lead to Chance becoming a “joke”.
THE BIG DAY
Again, let the time hop back to September 2016, right at the top of Chance’s career. At that time, he announced the news that he was preparing for releasing another music project: His first
“studio album”. Appropriately titled The Big Day, it came three years after this rise to fame. When he finally released the album, it turned out that the “Big Day” was synonymous with the failure that essentially killed his career.
After his announcement in 2016, Chance often appeared in different shows, along with being featured on different songs. But the album was yet to surface as promised! The album was never spoken of again until March 2019. He claimed that the album was going to be released several months later, still in 2019. Though the album dropped on time, he did not gain the applause or fame that he imagined. Although famous media still gave out an acceptable score for this first album, it turned out that the fans did not like the album much at all. So, what was the deal?! The problem was more obvious than it seemed: Of course, the music.
BIG DAY, AWFUL MUSIC
Just as its name, the big day spoke of his own wedding, devoted love to his wife, and endless cherish to God. The audience's dislike of him never came from his belief and his love for her wife. However, they obviously would not pay for a whole album that kept talking about the same style of lyrics. People never thought that The Big Day was made by the same rapper that created the Coloring Book, and Chance himself never thought that he is not even able to sell out all the tickets for his concert after the big day was released. Consequently, he had to cancel his entire tour with embarrassment. It was obvious that the “halo” of superstardom became dim after the release of The Big Day.
Chance the rapper’s ex-broker Pat Explains the reason why the album was so awful. According to Pat, Chance the Rappers finished the album within five months, right when his second baby was born. He was overwhelmed by the pressure. This time, it was hard for him to put extra energy into an unfinished album. He released a “freestyle album” without even considering it.
ANOTHER CHANCE?
What we can say is that Chance was driven by what he believed in, along with his love towards God. To finish and publish the album within a few months showed that this heart was full of love after his wedding. He needed some sort of way to release it. But what we can learn from Chance’s failure is this: If you take your success for granted, as it was something that your belief brought to you, then your belief could easily destroy you, too.
Although Chance is going through his biggest failure in his career, his talent for creating artistic music is still exists. Now, Chance the Rapper is still featured in songs with world-renowned singers and rappers. This includes one of the biggest hits from 2020, titled “HOLY”, featuring Justin Bieber. As expected, the “Old Chance” will shine again, just like ultralight beams.
Desiigner : PANDA- (single)
After viewing the fall of a star, let’s see a flash in the pan: Desiigner. You might not able to make a quick reaction to who Desiigner is, but you must have heard the song: “PANDA”
I got broads in Atlanta
Twisting'****, lean, and the Fanta
Credit cards and the scammers
Hit 'off licks in the ban-do
Black X6, Phantom
White X6 looks like a panda
Going out like I'm Montana
Hundred killers, hundred hammers
THE BIRTH OF A STAR
“Panda”, a song released by Desiigner in 2016, was an extremely successful song. The song scored the top place on the Billboard list, which basically means the “Most Fire Song of the Year”. It was a world-renowned song during that time period. It could be heard in any café or bar around the world. Heck, even your grandma probably heard about it, due to Desiigner joining Kanye West’s label, Good Music. He also participated in XXL freshman class in 2016, although he gave out a sub-par performance.
THE FALL OF A NEW STAR
As everybody expected the shining new star to release more songs, he in fact did not. He did not release an album for years, and the singles that he did release were terrible. And by terrible, I mean, nobody ever listened to them! His streams and overall heat dropped like a roller coaster. “Panda” seems to be the best, and the only, successful song that Desiigner has ever released.
The reason for Desiigner’s failure is obvious: He was too young, both in age and experience. Being so out of date was the result of going viral without much accumulation, putting aside the fact that he had no ability to write complex rhymes all. The complexity of the song was not enough, they were bland, boring, and just plain easy to get tired of.
What’s more, the early money and fame brought him to corruption. He couldn’t get out of the drug addiction, which was also seen with other celebrities to the caliber of Justin Bieber. Though Justin was a lucky one, Desiigner was not so fortunate.
APPRECIATION
Some of the lyrics by Frank Ocean’s Be Yourself are worth sharing and giving a quick read over. Being a warning from an earnest mother, there is something that everyone can gain from this, though on a much small scale. Trying to keep his son away from drugs and alcohol, while hoping to be powerful lyrics, can remind us all not to give up hope.
“Be Yourself”
Many college students have gone to college and gotten hooked on drugs, *********, and alcohol.
Listen, stop trying to be somebody else.
Don't try to be someone else.
Be yourself and know that that's good enough.
Don't try to be like someone else, don't try to act like someone else, be yourself.
Be secure with yourself.
Rely and trust your own decisions.
On your own beliefs.
Not to drink alcohol, not to use drugs.
Don't use that ******* or ********* because that stuff is highly addictive.
When people become ****-heads they become sluggish, lazy, stupid, and unconcerned.
Sluggish, lazy, stupid, and unconcerned.
Drake- certified lover boy
(we will call it CLB in the following context)
Certified lover boy, it is the sixth studio album that was released by Drake, it drops on September the third 2021, it is somehow been concerned as a successful album, commercially: the promotion is in place, also the competition with DONDA by Kanye West create more topic for this album by the light of nature, it takes over the billboard top 10 undoubtedly. That being said, judging this album in the aspect of a hip-hop fan, It is considered a huge failure. The reason is that Drake is more than capable of making good music: albums like “take care” and “ nothing was the same” is way more than commercial successful albums, I think they have a balanced coexistence of musicality and commerciality which CLB doesn’t.it is overly long, repetitive, and the sheer amount of songs solely made for readily play is insulting.
WAY 2 SEXY
It is the worst song, not for CLB, but for Drake’s. The whole career, what we need to know is the lead single, which is means that it is the track drake wants to go number one on the charts, and the song is so uninspired and lazy, the verses of the feature of future and young thug are blonde and boring, and they failed to save the song. the single takes the album from a pretty forgettable experience to the garbage like “ the big day”.
It is so boring.
REPETITIVE
The whole album, the whole album has only two kinds of songs: there are songs where Drake talks about a relationship he has with a girl, and then there are songs where drake calls out as haters. Moreover, there are too many tracks put in the album for no reason, which is means that the album has 21 songs that are basically talking about the same thing back to back. The worst example is the songs “love all” and “fair trade” which both fit into the second category of songs where drake calls out as haters. “Love all’ is about people turning their back on Drake for no good reason, “ fair trade “ is talking about how Drake means losing friends and finding peace: the only difference between the two songs is one of them is featuring Drake, and the other on is featuring Travis Scott, they are not even songs, they are just ransom bars strung together. Drake obviously doesn’t have enough going on in his life to justify making a full-length album, so what we get is an hour and a half of filler.
Overall, I really hope Drake putting a little more energy into his own music, to talk about some real stuff, instead of talking about the emptiness and paranoia he ultimately feels.
Ultimately, the biggest problem with CLB is that it is completely emotionless. I can’t feel anything except boredom, but that doesn’t matter, people will still listen to this no matter how trash it is because it’s Drake, and after a period of time, he will still release new albums with no nutrition, and his single will still take over the Billboard because it is Drake, and Samuel will write another article talking about how trash his new album is. I’m fringed crossed that he can still treat his career seriously, and we are all expecting the old Drake to be back.