Chance The Rapper Explains How Criticism Of His Album The Big Day Ruined His Confidence

When Chance The Rapper was coming off his Grammy-winning mixtape Coloring Book, a 14-song offering full of detailed stories, stellar features, and inspirational lyrics, it seemed much of the music world was counting the seconds until its follow-up dropped.

That came in 2019 with his first studio album, The Big Day, and surprisingly, his status as an industry darling diminished right before our eyes and his. That’s because it was reviewed harshly for its 22-song length, its mushy concept about marriage, and lack of cohesion.

The game plan for some artists after a musical misstep is to quickly release new material to generate some distance between themselves and a widely-panned project. However, the criticism did the opposite for Chance, because it yanked him out of his creative zone and plopped him into an area of stagnation, which later gave way to self-doubt.

The 32-year-old spoke eloquently about all of this in a new interview with former NFL player Cam Newton, and he explained how the Big Day criticism affected him and his creative process.

Chance Returned To Music Through Another Creative Medium

“When I first dropped, or I guess a little while after I dropped, I started to feel this, like, intense criticism really only on the internet, and it took me a long time to recognize that part, but I felt it so intently, and it was such a first-time feeling,” Chance explained. “I second-guessed myself.”

The father-of-two then turned to cinematography to get out of his creative woe, which ironically led him back to music making. Mainly, because he didn’t have anything to shoot, so he wrote “The Heart & The Tongue,” a song that was shaped around a film idea that he had.

“Once I made that song and that video and put it out to be like, ‘Look at how good this video was,’ everybody was like, ‘No, look at how good them raps is, keep rapping,’ and I had to keep rapping and keep making videos,” Chance recalled.

He then took a trip to Africa and worked on music or a video daily upon his return, which later resulted in buzzed-about singles like “Buried Alive,” “Together,” and “Stars Out.” Those songs led to the remarkable Star Line, an album released in August, and his refreshened approach shines through brightly.