Rating: 6/10

Chance released his first mixtape back in 2011 during a suspension from high school. Two years later he released his follow up tape, ‘Acid Rap‘, which proved that the young rapper was destined for success.

2016’s ‘Coloring Book‘ showed that he’d matured a lot since his earlier tapes. Chance had moved back home to Chicago and had a baby girl with his former girlfriend (now wife). His talent was evident on the project and it took him to new heights: becoming the first independent artist to win the grammy for ‘Best Rap Album’.

With ‘The Big Day‘, I think Chance will get his first number one album. I’m happy for him, but I sadly don’t think ‘The Big Day’ is a good album. It feels cluttered and the well-crafted instrumental beats that were the foundations of his previous mixtapes, seem to be buried underneath more generic instrumentals from hip-hop producers such as Pierre Bourne, Murda Beatz and Timbaland.

At 22 tracks, lasting 77 minutes, Chance takes the same approach that rappers like Travis Scott and Migos have taken in recent years; the phrase “throw enough mud at the wall and some of it will stick” comes to mind.

Kanye West‘s 2018 album ‘Ye‘ was 7 concise, connected songs, lasting 24 minutes in total. But at the other end of the spectrum was Drake‘s latest album ‘Scorpion‘ – 25 songs, 90 minutes long. Given the nature of music streaming in 2019, artists like Drake know that when they release a project that long, something in those 90 minutes will have the right ingredients for a hit song. I can’t lie that given the nature of the music industry, this approach makes commercial sense, but it comes at a cost.

As of writing this review, I’ve listened to the ‘The Big Day‘ three times in full, on each play-through when I’ve reached the thirteenth or fourteenth track, I’ve found myself checking if the album was nearly over yet (it’s not). The album is far too long. Chance could have so easily cut eight tracks from the final release and it would have been a decent sounding project at a manageable length.

I think it was a mistake from Chance to label this project as his debut album. The project shows little to no continuity throughout, feeling cluttered and without substance despite the self-reflective content in most of the songs. There are so many hooks on the album that are just generic, a word I would never have previously used to describe Chance. A good example is the chorus “Salmon Gucci slide, slide around. Legit on that jet, I can fly around” on ‘Slide Around‘. I’m happy that Chance has achieved fame and found happiness in his personal life, but his raps just don’t feel interesting anymore. He successfully managed to discuss fame and family on his last release, ‘Coloring Book’, so I don’t know what has changed.

Don’t get me wrong, there are positive moments on the album; take ‘Roo‘ the emotional track about Chance’s childhood, which features a near-perfect verse from his brother Taylor Bennett, who sounds more passionate than his older sibling does on the whole album. There are also tracks that I can’t pretend didn’t have me nodding my head, like ‘Eternal‘ and ‘I Got You (Always and Forever)‘ with Ari Lennox really impressing me on the latter track.

My problem is that for every positive moment, there are many negative moments that overshadow them. ‘Hot Shower‘ is a generic song. It sounds like it has been made for teenagers to dance to on the app TikTok. Then the final track of the album, ‘Zanies and Fools‘, sees Chance rap about how he met his wife, but then there’s a Nicki Minaj verse which concludes the song and album – a somewhat impersonal decision.

I found that the self-titled track ‘The Big Day‘ works as decent metaphor for the album. It’s quite nice sounding initially, but there’s not much substance and it drags on a bit, and then, there are moments that just don’t work: which in this song comes from a shouting verse, which was such a shock first listen that I nearly jumped out of my skin (2:15 into the song if you don’t fancy sitting through it all).

There’s no doubt to me that this project will do great streaming numbers and I know some songs will definitely be getting added to my playlist. That said, I think Chance could have benefitted from being a part of Kanye’s so-called ‘surgical summer‘ of short and simple 7 track albums. Instead, it is sad to say that Chance’s first effort at an actual album falls short on his ‘big day’.