Petition to make Chance The Rapper the next Pope

By Zack Boehm on May 18, 2016

In November 2015, Pope Francis released a prog-rock album called Wake Up!, a collection of songs that saw the Pontiffs prerecorded speeches and homilies superimposed onto schmaltzy, 80’s evoking, operatic rock instrumentals. The project was received with more head scratching amusement than sincere interest. It was just another well-intentioned but transparent play for contemporaneity from an institution so ancient and structurally allergic to change that it only just amended its rules on the mandated use of Latin 50 years ago. Nobody took Wake Up! seriously as piece of music (Pitchfork suspended their sacred scoring system in order to award the album a “3:16”), and it’s hard to believe that hordes of unbelievers had the scales fall from their eyes upon hearing Francis’ dulcet intonations accompanied by a chorus of sweet guitar licks. In other words, Wake Up! didn’t succeed aesthetically, and it didn’t quite work as a piece of religious propaganda.

Chance the Rapper’s new mixtape Coloring Book achieves both of these goals with Pentecostal zeal.

via chanceraps.com

Coloring Book, Chance’s long anticipated third project, as well as being an expertly crafted musical mélange of hip-hop, gospel, jazz, and trap, is essentially one long, exuberant benediction. The mixtape abounds with songs that are exultantly lifted up to God. The tone of religious praise is set in the opening track “All We Got”, a buoyant hymn to music and the “king of all kings”, when Chance raps, “I got my word from the sermon / I do not talk to the serpent / That’s the holistic discernment” and the spiritual ecstasy persists throughout the mix-tape on songs like “Blessings”, “Angels”, and “Finish Line / Drown”.

via djbooth.com

On Coloring Book, Chance foregrounds religious language and imagery in a way that few of his peers would dare to even attempt. It’s difficult to imagine another extant rapper producing a work that would be equally appropriate on religious and mainstream hip-hop radio, a work that is categorically gospel in sound and sensibility.

It’s difficult to say what it is about Chance that allows him to pull off something as overtly religious as Coloring Book in a moment when the paradigm in the hip-hop world is so clearly hedonistic, indulgent, lean-drinking trap rap. Maybe it’s his inexhaustible enthusiasm. Maybe it’s his razor sharp scriptural literacy (he raps about everything from the Garden of Eden to the walls of Jericho to Old Testament Judges) and the way he leverages this literacy into brilliantly allusive verse. Maybe it’s the fact that for as much as Chance waxes spiritual, he never comes off as sanctimonious or proselytizing. Instead he raps about the intense personal joy that he derives from his faith, a joy that, when rapped with the ebullient sincerity that has become Chance’s hallmark, can’t help but sound appealing. Even for an irreligious person like me, there is something irresistible in how rhapsodic Chance becomes when discussing his faith. Chance doesn’t seem especially interested in evangelizing, but that’s exactly what makes him such an effective evangelizer.

via slate.com

Chance has the fervent charisma of a pastor consumed by the spirit, and there are times when entering the world of Coloring Book feels like entering the coolest, most zeitgeisty megachurch ever. The religion of Coloring Book feels like the religion of the future. No clear denomination. No exclusivity. No manipulative fear mongering. Just joy and love and triumph. When Pope Francis expires or decides to abdicate his role as Vicar of Christ, the College of Cardinals would be remiss not to consider one Chancellor Bennet from Chicago, Illinois. At the very least, a Pope Chance would mean an improvement in papal album quality.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format