The last time we spoke to Chance the Rapper in person, we were at his second home, House of Kicks, in Chicago. It was the fall of 2022, and at the time he was thinking ahead. After a tough couple of years, he was ready to turn the page and map out how he was going to push his artistry to the next level. Now, two years later, we’re seeing the fruits of that labor.
He has spent much of 2024 putting out new music and prepping his sophomore album, Star Line. So far his new songs—which include “Buried Alive,” “Together” with DJ Premier, and “Stars Out”—have expanded his lyrical palette, as he goes into detail about the turbulence he’s faced over the last couple of years. These are deeply personal stories and Chance had to overcome some nerves before releasing them on wax.
“It felt really scary when I was getting ready to drop [‘Buried Alive’],” Chance the Rapper told Complex at the NeueHouse in New York City. The rapper had just wrapped a fireside chat with college basketball star Juju Watkins centered around Meta AI and how the tool can be used to benefit creatives and the WNBA. “What’s funny is that it got so much love. [People were like] ‘Damn, it’s good that this is what he’s on now…And that [song] is a two-year-old track. I made it at a time but wasn’t ready to release it, and something just came to me. I shot that video six months before it came out [too].”
Chance dropped “Buried Alive” back in April. On the track, he references his divorce from his wife, Kirsten Corley; the separation from his former manager, Pat Corcoran; and commentary about losing his “hype” since releasing his debut album The Big Day in 2019. There’s a lot riding on Star Line, which he describes as “83 percent done,” but the positive reception of the music he’s released thus far has given Chance confidence.
“There is an immense amount of pressure when you’re a famous rapper,” he said. “I represent a lot of people. I represent my family and I represent friends, and whatever I say on wax, especially in this digital age, it’ll be around forever. And depending on how the internet reacts to it and presents it later, it can be regurgitated as a completely different thing than what I meant. I have to be careful with what I write, what I say, and definitely what I put out. But I love that right now, I’m so confident and so good that it really feels like a great opportunity every time I drop.”
The world of rap has been far from quiet over the past few months with diss tracks flying everywhere. But Chance is fully in the present with this new album.
“We’re living in the project right now,” Chance said. “No one has the attention span for what the conversation needs to be, so I’m piecing it together and I’m living in it with my fans, with the new artists I come in contact with, and every moment so far has been huge.”
