How Chance the Rapper redefines music

Chance The Rapper accepts the award for best rap album for Coloring Book at the 59th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Matt Sayles/Invision/AP

Chance The Rapper accepts the award for best rap album for “Coloring Book” at the 59th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Hip-hop artist Chance the Rapper is a unique artist who redefined music with vibrant and retro styled beats. His Grammy-winning album “Coloring Book,” which had 338 million streams, also debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart, and featured guest appearances from Justin Bieber, Future, and Lil Wayne earned him positive critiques.

On February 12th, Chance the Rapper made Grammy history. He was the first black hip-hop artist since Lauryn Hill in 1999 to win the Best New Artist award at the Grammys. He also won three out of the seven awards he was nominated for. He won best rap album for his album “Coloring Book” against other hip hop artists including Drake, Kanye West, DJ Khaled, De La Soul, and Schoolboy Q. He also won a Grammy for the Best Rap Performance for his song “No Problem,” featuring Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz.

Chance the Rapper’s Grammy performance was rated outstanding. He took the audience “to church” with the songs “How Great” and “All We Got” with Kirk Franklin and Tamela Mann. Backed with a blissful church choir. During his acceptance speech Chance the Rapper expressed his intense gratitude.

“I want to thank God for my mother and my father, who supported me since I was young, for Kirsten, for Kensli, for all of Chicago, and I want to thank God for putting amazing people in my life,” said Chance the Rapper.

Chance the Rapper became the first hip hop artist to win a Grammy without selling any physical copies of his music. Although Chance does not earn a lot of money from selling his music, he makes up for it from tours, merchandise like his “3” hat, meet-and-greets and sponsors from companies like Bud Light and Citibank.

Chance the Rapper is not signed to any label or record deal, which he mentions in the lyrics of his song, “Ain’t no label gonna stop me.” Even a $10 million record label could not influence the rap artist. He believes in working on his own terms and being independent.

His albums are streaming only because he wants to give his music away for free and figure out music for himself. Chance the Rapper wants control of his own music and refuses to buy himself out from label and record deals.