Chance the Rapper Pulls Off a Remarkable Return to Form on ‘Star Line’

When Chance the Rapper announced the release of his first album in six years, the long-gestating Star Line, one couldn’t help but wonder if the 32-year-old Chicago rapper and singer who tasted superstardom during the sunset of the Obama administration had anything interesting left to offer, much less music that’s relevant. Back in those heady Coloring Book days, Chance announced himself on “Blessings” as “Kanye’s best prodigy,” and proved it by powering one of West’s finest tracks, “Ultralight Beam,” while scoring major Billboard chart hits alongside Lil Wayne (“No Problem”) as well as DJ Khaled (Khaled’s “I’m the One” and “No Brainer”) and Justin Bieber (“Holy”). He studiously resuscitated the gospel flourishes of West’s The College Dropout breakthrough, then filtered them with a buoyant, cartoon-y lens, and shaped himself as a voice attuned to the Black Lives Matter-fueled communalism then sweeping through young America. Even as some listeners bristled at Chance’s overtly Christian messaging and chirpy pop tones, it was clear that his heart was in the right place.

Nearly ten years after 2016’s Coloring Book, West has degenerated into a self-proclaimed Black Nazi. (Not surprisingly, West’s tragic heel turn goes unmentioned on Star Line.) Chance celebrated marital life in 2019’s otherwise poorly received The Big Day, only to endure a painful public divorce last year. And Mac Miller, who mentored Chance after the latter’s 2013 breakout Acid Rap, died of a drug overdose in 2018. “Mac died September, I cried October…hey, we grew up on tour,” raps Chance amid Jazmine Sullivan’s vocals on Star Line’s final track, “Speed of Light.” He rues how fans still want him to take the same drugs he imbibed back in the day: “Here, you take the acid since you concerned.”

However, Chance hasn’t lost his innate optimism, and it’s that quality that ultimately makes Star Line a worthy and even remarkable return to form. The title is inspired by 20^th century Jamaican immigrant and pan-African radical Marcus Garvey’s famed Black Star Line project, which sought to help Black Americans migrate to Liberia. Symbolically, the title implores us to continue dreaming of a better future amid innumerable political and personal crises. Unlike The Big Day, which found Chance duetting with Death Cab for Cutie and Randy Newman, nearly every contributor on Star Line is a person of color. (Some of the album’s producers, like Nate Fox and Sam Barsh, are white.) Chance wants to speak to his people, but he’s conscious of making space for everyone beyond the Black Diaspora. “Don’t lay down when you know that they should feel a noose/Know it ain’t shit to lynch a Dylann Roof,” he charges on “Letters,” a song that implores Black churches to abandon its capitalistic prosperity-gospel antics and rediscover the activist fervor of the Civil Rights Era. Tellingly, he closes that track by signing off, “Love, Chance. P.S.: Bless everybody.”

Chance’s efforts to build a tent that can encompass a smorgasbord of Black thought inevitably leads to difficult moments. He brings back Lil Wayne for “Tree,” a corny yet fun interpolation of India.Arie’s “Video” melody that explores the political implications of marijuana. “Dispensary weed is a government scam,” claims Chance. But Wayne muddies the occasion by tactlessly boasting, “I be smokin’ like an injun.” More alarmingly, Chance invites Jay Electronica onto “Just a Drop,” a complex and ultimately satisfying number about how Black people, despite being cast in God’s image, are systematically deprived of land and water. “They don’t care if our water get dirty as fuck,” says Chance as he evokes the Flint Water Crisis. Then Jay Elec rehashes his familiar argument about how righteous, godly Black men are oppressed by “the money changers and money lenders.” “That’s why they banned him off Facebook, probably,” he raps, alluding to frequent criticism that he’s antisemitic. Two years ago, a similar Jay Elec verse on Noname’s excellent Sundial led fans to blame her for working with him. But listeners itching to attack Chance should try to understand the context of “Just a Drop.” 

In an era when media outlets frequently debate whether we should forgive family members led astray by the MAGA movement, and why we should continue to support centrist Democratic representatives that tolerate Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, Chance’s efforts to break bread with folks who don’t necessarily think like him feels like a humane and necessary gesture for achieving Black unity. That doesn’t mean that he or anyone else is above criticism. On “The Negro Problem,” he sings, “Your problem is my problem”; then ingeniously closes the number with audio from a vintage Richard Pryor skit satirizing older Blacks that disapproved of Daishikis and “African shit.” (“My parents go, ‘That nigga’s crazy,’ said Pryor to audience laughter.) He pairs with teenage drill upstart BigChiefDoIt on “Drapetomania,” and says, “I got a 9mm called Thug Life/I got a new chain it says, ‘Fuck ICE’.” Less believably, he teams with Young Thug and TiaCorine on “Gun in Yo Purse” and riffs, “Sometimes we gotta die/Them niggas gon’ die first.” Chance may be a man of the people, and often confident to the point of peevishness. But he’s not a hardcore rapper.

Topical to a fault, Star Line bursts with themes – Chance’s affinity for Black people and his ‘Raq hometown, the loneliness of being a bachelor, his love for his two daughters, getting life lessons from his father, and much else. Some tracks soar, like “The Highs and the Lows” with Joey Bada$$, which coalesces around a memorable chipmunk soul beat co-produced by Chance and DexLVL. Others falter, like the bland arena-pop ballad “Space & Time.” But Chance proves himself an expert composer at sewing the album’s 17 tracks into a cohesive, memorable statement. “The West Chatham Santa with some toys to give,” as he calls himself on “Star Line Intro,” remains a person of faith. But his joy feels earned. “Sometimes I think she was the love of my life,” he admits about his ex-wife on “Pretty,” a song about embracing the person in the mirror. “I remember what I told myself/That I owe myself to show myself love.”