Poignant, simple and Significant. How one song alone demarcates Chance the Rapper’s prowess as a storyteller.
Chance the Rapper has undoubtedly become one of the biggest stars in the hip hop world, and rightfully so. He’s goofy, loveable, and extremely, extremely talented. Looking beyond his charming personality, what we have, when we see Chance is a man who is genuinely unlike anyone that has come before him. Having released three mix-tapes (with Colouring Book being his first studio album). Objectively for someone with Chance’s reverence, he has not produced a whole lot of music.
So this begs the question, Why is Chance the Rapper so successful, so quickly?
To me, Same drugs is the best possible answer to this question without a royal commission into the guy.
Let’s start with it’s composition — its simple. You have Chance, Eryn Allen Kane and his signature gospel choir as background vocalists. Beyond that, the song in terms of production only focuses on a number of piano chords, a few noticeable percussive layers and finally some sporadic guitar riffs which punctuate the song. The minimalism associated with his choice of instruments establishes a poignant yet wholesome tone from the outset (especially with the gospel crooning following every Chance verse). However the minimalism in my opinion is more a tool to magnify the meaning of his lyrics — his poetry.
To me this is where Chance exposes a certain type of intelligence he possess that I dare say is unrivalled in the ‘Rap game’.
A meta analysis conducted by Madanikia et Al 2014 entitled ‘Themes of love and lust in Popular Music lyrics from 1971 to 2011’ sets out to quantify and analyse themes related to sexual desire (lust) and romantic desire (love) in the lyrics of popular music over the past 40 years, specifically through the analysis of ‘top 40 songs of Billboard Year End Hot 100 single songs for every 5 years from 1971 to 2011 (N = 360)”.
As a general outline of the study, it was found that there has been a significant decrease associated with songs dealing with the puritan concept of love itself. Alternatively, it was observed that there was a marked increased in lyrical compositions centring around unrequited love, sexual domination and lust in the absence of love.
Whilst these findings alone cannot be accepted as a rule for all music nowadays, what it can rather be used as is a spotlight on the prevailing attitudes espoused by our biggest stars and the values that are considered topical hitherto. Cough cough ** The Weeknd, Partynextdoor, Bryson Tiller, Drake, ASAP Mob, Schoolboy Q etc .. **
With that hard hitting social study in mind, An analysis of Chance’s lyrical composition exposes a poignant inquest into love and it’s follies. He tackles this concept in a distinct manner in comparison to his peers. Where most are lamenting of failed relationships (be it infidelity, materialism, a devotion to their ‘hustle’, or really just being young, dumb and stupid), Chance contrastingly uses the innocent story of Peter Pan to demarcate the stark dichotomy of Love and associated heartbreak.
Although Chance opens with the Chorus, the brevity of it isn’t truly captured until the First two verses are delivered. The intertextual reliance on Peter Pan begins from the very first stanza. Chance expresses his lovers change in heart through Wendy and her ‘ageing’. As he delves further into the progressive distance between himself and her, a sense of dejection grows. With an almost accusatory and embittered tone as he questions ‘When did you change?, Wendy, you’ve aged, I thought you’d never grow up’.
Grief stricken; he makes you believe in that fleeting moment that this feeling is almost a consequence of only her emotional follies. However, in both the first verse and the following verse, this sense of loss is complicated through the repetition of ‘I was too late, I was too late’.
Almost as if he were providing an admission of guilt, Chance acknowledges a sense of responsibility in Wendy’s subsequent loss of love for him. Closing out the second Verse Chance employs several rhetorical questions, almost beseeching his Wendy to remember of the good times, a form of romantic terrorism hoping to guilt her (and us) into returning back to him; ’Don’t you miss the days, stranger? Don’t you miss the days Don’t you miss the danger?’ but too no avail.
Where verses one and two serve as a vignette into the psyche of man suffering from unrequited love, the outro and chorus serve to show the cold, hard reality of love and it’s failure. The chorus is simple the repetition of ‘we don’t do the same drug no more, She don’t do the same drug no more’. Love has been quoted as being a drug, and to me the chorus simply signifies an acceptance of the end. A recognition nothing more can happen as ‘she’ has changed and that she no longer does the ‘same drug no more’. A fork in the road as Frost once described in the Road not taken. A sentiment which seems ironically paralleled by Chance in the final line ‘stay in the line, stay in the line, dandelion’ . Ironic as whilst the line acknowledges this change is absolute, it rather stems from a sense of loss and bereavement as opposed to nostalgia in Frost’s poetry.
Where most artists seem to fall on the characteristic trap crackles, cheap pop hooks and emotional crooning, Chance the rapper uniquely takes the innocent story of Peter Pan, utilises a simple musical production and focuses on storytelling to show that love is not simply just a product of happenstance and emotional intoxication. It’s a give and take of sorts, it’s hard work and when it is not fully committed too, will eventually lead to breakdown of epic proportions. To me, Chance provides a truly purposeful and meaningful insight into complexity of human relationships, in a manner that is true to himself and his style.
( Madanikia, Y., & Bartholomew, K. (2014). Themes of Lust and Love in Popular Music Lyrics From 1971 to 2011. SAGE Open)
