Chance the Rapper makes history following the first ever Grammy Award for a streaming-only album.

Posted on 13 February 2017
By Gabriel Jaloszynski
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Chance the Rapper, a 23 year old Chicago prodigy also known as Chancelor Jonathan Bennett, made history at the 59th Grammy award ceremony as he becomes the first unsigned artist that won the Best Rap Album award for his streaming-only album “Coloring Book”.

Beating Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” and Drake’s “Views” in the same category, Chance the Rapper officially established a new age in Rap and music industry in itself by winning the award without selling a single copy of his album.

His victory was possible due to the recent rule amendment by The Recording Academy regarding albums only released on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music. The decision likely followed due to the ongoing trend in the media industry of diminishing the conventional barriers separating the creators from the consumers, merging them into one as innovative digital revolution continues to reshape the world.

Coloring Book, alternatively called Chance 3, is Chano’s third mixtape, released exclusively on Apple music on the 13th of May last year

It debuted as the first album to chart solely from online streams at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 with 57.3 million streams, eqauting to 38,000 units.

The album followed his critically acclaimed mixtape ‘’Acid Rap’’ and the debut album “Surf” as part of the neo-soul collective The Social Experiment.

The project was released completely free of charge just as all his other work, a decision that helped to shape his image over the years and show the possibilities of truly independent music production without the need for commercial labels.

This is also something Chance touched upon during his acceptance speech by saying: “I wanna thank God for my team. I know people think that independence means you do it by yourself, but independence means freedom”.

Coloring Book shows off a wide range of artists with whom Chance the Rapper collaborated with from Kanye West and Young Thug up to Chicago Children’s Choir, a non profit organisation founded in 1956 at the height of The Civil Rights Movement, used for his signature gospel samples on this album.

Chance the Rapper also collaborated with other artists in the past including Childish Gambino, Supa Bwe, Kehlan and many more.

The Illinois game changer also managed to secure the Best New Artist award beating artists such as the American DJ duo,The Chainsmokers and the multi instrumentalist Anderson.Paak as well as The Best Rap Performance award, setting out high expectations for Chano’s next step.

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