What ‘The Big Day’ Could Have Been
Tags: Hip Hop, Chance The Rapper, Álbum, Music, Rap

Chance the Rapper (via Billboard)

So at the point of writing this, I’ve finally come to terms with how disappointed I was in Chance the Rapper’s debut album, The Big Day. I woke up early on the morning of its release, in anticipation of good feelings. I refreshed Twitter dozens of times, read tweets under the comments of his latest posts, in solidarity with the hundreds of other people who were hoping for the swift release of the project that Chance had be teasing for months; the clear, bedazzled disc that became Chance’s album cover was the only thing I dreamed of at night. So when the moment finally came for me to listen to the album in full, I was excited.

But there was some apprehension from the start.

An important thing you should know about me is that I hate long albums, and for me, that’s anything over 12–13 songs — I’ll even take less. 12–13 songs is enough for there to be a decent beginning, middle, and end to the album, without it feeling rushed or unfinished. Think Daniel Caesar’s Freudian (2017) at 10 songs, Denzel Curry’s TABOO (2018) at 13 songs, KIDS SEE GHOST’S KIDS SEE GHOSTS (2018) at 7 songs, or IDK’s IWASVERYBAD at 12 songs. All 4 of these projects for me are well-crafted, full projects that pack a lot of punch in a short amount of time. That means that, with the restraint of keeping the tracklist small, there is even more of a push to keep be intentional about the songs that are included. And there are a bunch of examples of longer albums that are just as amazing (Kanye West’s Late Registration (2005) at 21 songs, Frank Ocean’s channel ORANGE (2012) at 17 songs, and Anderson Paak’s Malibu (2016) at 16 songs), but when the runtime is longer, the door is left open for the possibility of the artist including songs on their album that should have been put in the vault. Forever. (Or at least saved for a smaller EP or mixtape)

Another important thing you should know about me is that I hate when people speak on songs — album interludes where someone is chatting, the beginning of Drake’s “Marvin’s Room,” and anything of the sort…I don’t really mess with (though some welcomed exceptions to this are the skits on Late Registration (2005) and College Dropout (2004) — those skits are GREAT. And as annoying as it is to hear the beginning of “Marvin’s Room” for the 25th time, it’s an ok first listen). So, when I saw Chance’s album was going to have both of those musical elements that make me want to tear my hair out, I was almost positive that I wasn’t going to be a big fan of the album. However, for Chance, I set that aside. I shouldn’t have set that aside.

But all the problems that I have with The Big Day have already been fleshed out. Anthony Fantano, this Pitchfork article, and several other opinion pieces/sources have mulled through the boringness and incohesiveness of the album, on top of Chance’s verses not really coming through like they normally do. Even the “we back” and “IGH!” in “All Day Long,” the album’s John Legend-featuring first track, didn’t hit like they did on Coloring Book (2016) and Acid Rap (2013).

So I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about what The Big Day could have been, a 9-song, skitless version of the album that is every bit as joyous as the original, but allows for a reintroduction of the depth that made Coloring Book an amazing project.

The first third of the album would tackle the feelings of that special day in Chance and Kirsten’s lives. The first song in the trio is the joyous, triumphant intro that we’re accustomed to. In it, he’s talking about everything he talked about in the actual Big Day: the excitement of getting married, the excitement of spending the rest of his life with the person he loves, raising two daughters in a loving home. He carries that joy into the following two songs, giving us a first third of the album that sounds like the Big Day: an idealistic, beautiful, and wonderful dreamland set to the beginning of “65th and Ingleside” on loop, where Chance finds home and can scream “I LOVE MY WIFE….IGH!!!!” as loud as he wants.

The second third of the album would tackle what it actually feels like to be in the Bennett household post-the big day. We learn why it’s important for him and Kirsten to have date nights with just the two of them; we learn Kensli’s favorite bedtime story; we are introduced to the difficulties of bringing a kid into the world, when you’re still pretty young yourself. I’m imagining this beautiful track that features Chance’s favorite Dad artists (e.g. his brother Taylor Bennett, Kanye, Anderson Paak….there are so many dads to choose from), where they all talk about the experience of being a father who is still chasing this dream of making music. We could learn what being a father has taught them about themselves and how they see the world, something like Kanye’s “Violent Crimes,” but with a little something extra to it. It could be a beautiful way to remind the world that black fathers who actively take care of their children is a thing, and not an anomaly, in a way that doesn’t praise them as being the knights in shining armor of the world, but in a way that allows their stories to be told.

The third third of the album is about the future — the good stuff and the bad stuff. Chance could talk about his “5 Year Plan” in full. He could talk about the joys and the possible anxieties of watching children get older. What it means for him to wake up in the morning and his dreamland has turned into a nightmare. He could talk about getting older and aging fine like wine, but also seeing a few extra wrinkles every once in a while. He could even talk about how it could be hard to love music and family equally at the same time. And this part of the album wouldn’t be to erase all the beauty of the first two thirds, but it would give us a little bit more than “I LOVE MY WIFE.” It would give us a fuller explanation as to why he loves his wife so much and what it could mean to lose her again.

So we have the honeymoon phase, the “wow this is real life, I’m raising KIDS” phase, and the “holy shit, what happens if I wake up and x,y, and z part of my life is gone” phase. Chance’s family isn’t in hiding anymore. We see Kirsten and Kensli on his Instagram all the time, and I cry every time I see him hype Kensli up in every little piece of her life. They deserved to play more than just background characters or pathways to Chance growing up. He’s under no obligation to share more about his family than he’s comfortable, but he has opened that door in so many respects, that it only seems right that we get to know the ladies that have changed his life so much in full. They deserve that much.

But I also say all of this after watching Tyler the Creator’s Funk Flex interview, where he talks about his disappointment at Eminem’s recent work. He mentioned that, in order for Eminem to appease fans who wanted to hear the “old Em,” Eminem tried to recreate the magic of his old stuff. And in Tyler’s eyes, it flopped. Tyler mentioned that for him, hearing someone make music about the things that are going on in their current lives (e.g. things they love), is a much more beautiful experience because you can hear how real it is.

So, I also want to recognize that in The Big Day. Chance is in love with is current life, and he gave us an hour and 17 minute-long love letter to prove it. So while, I wish we would have gotten something different, I also must respect him for not trying to go back and create a Coloring Book, Acid Rap, or 10 Day. As much as people want to say that doing that would have been better for him, him attempting to find those sounds again would strip away all of the growth that has happened in his life so far. And Chance shouldn’t have to do that for us to like a project. Because at the end of the day, as Tyler said in his interview, albums are made for the artists who make them. And Chance made an album that he could play over and over again with his wife and daughter(s) and feel like he’s right back at the start of his dream.