It’s Wonderful That Chance The Rapper Is The Artist That Sam Cooke Deserved To Continue Being
Just like Chance, Sam Cooke also made music for freedom
Get too caught up in being all-in for the direct gospel references and feel of Chicago-based emcee Chance The Rapper’s latest mixtape Coloring Book and you might miss that it’s actually the delicate balance between spiritual and secular music that he as an artist is walking that’s significant. In this hallowed emotional ground now appearing to be the space in where his fast-rising career will achieve it’s greatest heights, it may be time to realize that no black artist has been this good at music since Sam Cooke too briefly roamed the Earth. In this being the case, let’s think back 60 years to how what made Sam so unique also defines Chance’s iconoclastic excellence.
In 1956, Sam Cooke left behind a career as the lead singer of gospel music’s highly successful Soul Stirrers gospel group to attempt to instead chart a course to become a soul stirring solo rhythm and blues sensation. The crossover between gospel and soul music was one that was just not done in that era, as there was a definite “separation of church and state” in black music. Cooke’s success was defined by him not really altering much of his gospel-seasoned soothing vocal stylings after “defecting” to the side of immorality and strong sexual themes then-ascribed to R & B. This mix of secular and sanctified proved ideal as Cooke’s first pop release “You Send Me” reached #1 on Billboard’s Pop and R & B charts in 1957.
Similar to Cooke, by 2016, Chance the Rapper has in many ways created music that lies beyond traditional rap. He’s moreso the lead vocalist of his band The Social Experiment, and thus blends rap and organic soul tropes into a lo-fi but still quite pop-ready sound. This is what makes Chance unlike any other artist making music in the modern era, and when you couple that with his lack of desire to release music at no commercial cost to the consumer, he may also be — just like Sam Cooke — one of the most controversial, yet unequivocally great artists in black-to-mainstream music in quite some time.
Just like Chance is surrounded by other non-traditional rappers, Sam Cooke wasn’t the only artist of his era who mixed religion with soul music and created a profanely seductive sound. He was eventually joined by the likes of everyone from Ray Charles to Al Green in this regard, but it is an inarguable point that Cooke did it the best. Whereas Ray Charles’ religion was “What I’d Say”’s gut-bucked Baptist/Methodist call and response rumble and Al Green’s was borne out of issues surrounding the infamous 1974 case of his married girlfriend dousing him with hot grits and then committing suicide, Cooke’s religiosity bled through in song in a mellifluous, earnest and effortless manner that afforded him instantaneous and significant success.
The profanely seductive soul rap on Chance The Rapper’s Coloring Book mixtape entrances a who’s who of modern soul pop including Kanye West, Future, Justin Bieber, 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne, Young Thug, Kirk Franklin and more. Just like Sam Cooke did six decades ago, Chance outclasses all of his collaborators on the mixtape by feeling more uniquely intertwined with the desire to embrace religion. If describing this like a desert, in being just a pinch more sweet than salty, Chance’s organic connection to the place where the spiritual and secular collide shines brightest.
There are seven rap-related artists in the prior paragraph who have a more-than checkered past with misogyny, violence and cloyingly self-aggrandizing behavior. However, there’s only one Chance the Rapper that’s neither raped nor killed anyone ever on a record. Moreover, on this mixtape, he’s finally able to just be thankful for his many “Blessings.”
“Blessings” is to Chance The Rapper as “A Change Is Gonna Come” is to Sam Cooke. Cooke’s stirring orchestral ballad was released in 1964, and was his last #1 single prior to his untimely death in the same year. As for “Blessings,” it’s Coloring Book’s ultimate moment, the first time wherein Chance has has the ability to explicitly create the deep connection between his secular rap, his spiritual upbringing and moreover who’s *actually* the “boss” when it comes to his career.
I don’t make songs for free, I make ’em for freedom
Don’t believe in kings, believe in the Kingdom
Chisel me into stone, prayer whistle me into song air
Dying laughing with Krillin saying something ‘bout blonde hair
Jesus’ black life ain’t matter, I know I talked to his daddy
Said you the man of the house now, look out for your family
He has ordered my steps, gave me a sword with a crest
And gave Donnie a trumpet in case I get shortness of breath
Chance is doing the Lord’s work first here, which creates a Cooke-similar point of contention. However, we’re not in Cooke’s era where the issue of secular melding with spiritual is necessarily an issue because of the immorality of pop music. Rather spiritual vs. secular is a point of division because in giving away his songs for free, Chance — like Cooke in 1957 — is a wildly successful artist and lacks instead of a box in which to be contextualized, it’s a label contract by which to be commoditized by traditional means that makes him a potential industry pariah.
Until Chance the Rapper released “Blessings,” Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” was the ultimate song borne of gospel roots (“by a river”) that, like their careers, found it’s freedom beyond it’s religious underpinnings. In a 2014 NPR article, “A Change Is Gonna Come” is as being “striking enough that it would have its own originality….[is] endlessly adaptable to whatever goal [and] whatever movement is of the moment.” Chance The Rapper has mirrored Sam Cooke’s ultimate recording, which now puts Chance in Cooke’s class as an artist. As well, just like Sam Cooke, Chance the Rapper is bucking convention, embracing religion, discovering freedom, aiming for something more, and has no desire to look back at anyone questioning his motives.
That’s wonderful.
