Hip-Hop: For Chance the Rapper’s fans, the flashbacks come before Acid drops
On Fri 11/23 local MC Chancelor Bennett—better known as Chance the Rapper—will headline Metro with a show called “Acid Rap Live,” after the title of his next mixtape. He plans to perform Acid Rap songs, but the collection won’t actually be released Friday.
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The 19-year-old has checked off a lot of boxes since releasing his #10Day mixtape this spring: he packed streetwear store Jugrnaut for a #10Day listening party in April, sold out Lincoln Hall in June, and toured with popular MC Childish Gambino for part of the summer. “I had never been out of this state before I went on the road with them,” Bennett says. “The idea of music literally taking me places was something really hard to fathom.”
After making #10Day Bennett started getting into acid jazz and LSD—hence the name Acid Rap. The material I heard when I visited him at South Loop studio Force One Seven was playful and almost jarringly eclectic. “It gets down to a point where it’s just like a lot of literal trippy shit on the album,” he says.
This is only the second time this year that Rainbo has hosted a rock show—the first was the Running record release in May. If you’ve ever spent time at the bar, it’s easy to imagine how intimate a show there could be. And by “intimate,” I mean “crowded.” Show up early.
—Peter Margasak
