Chicago’s Chance The Rapper Of 'No Problem' Makes Grammy History; Gets 7 Nods Without Label Help; Even Exceeds Adele’s Number Of Nominations
A milestone in the music history was made this Tuesday morning, December 6, as the Recording Academy revealed its nominees and it includes streaming-only works. One of them is the rising Chicago native emcee Chance the Rapper, whose work is free and only available on streaming sites.
The nominees for the 59th Annual Grammy Awards showed that Chance the Rapper garnered seven Grammy nominations. He is only behind established artists Beyonce (9), Drake (8), Rihanna (8) and Kanye West (8) as artists with the most number of nominations this year.
He even exceeded global superstars Adele (5), Justin Bieber (4), Sia (3), and the late rock legend David Bowie (4). His album Coloring Book is the first streaming-only album to receive a Grammy nomination.
Coloring Book, which received critical acclaim from music critics because of its lyrical content and fusion of hip-hop and Christian gospel elements, successfully snatched a Best Rap Album nomination, against Drake's Views, DJ Khaled's Major Key, De La Soul's and the Anonymous Nobody..., Schoolboy Q's Black Face LP and his mentor Kanye West's The Life of Pablo.
His single No Problem featuring 2 Chainz and Lil' Wayne was also nominated for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song. He is also given credit for some of Kanye West works like Famous and Ultralight Beam.
To top it all, he was up for Best New Artist against Kelsea Ballerini, The Chainsmokers, Maren Morris, and Anderson .Paak. A Best New Artist win paved more way to successful singers like Mariah Carey, John Legend, Alicia Keys, and Adele.
Chance The Rapper achieved all of this without any labels helping him. The emcee from the Windy City managed his 13-track streaming-only album to chart in Billboard 200 (57 million streams which equate to 38,000 units sold) and his song No Problem managed to enter Top 40 in US charts, only relying on its 89 million streams on Spotify.
With this, Chance The Rapper proved that talent can triumph over commercial labels and how it can affect its work and artistic freedom. Does he have a chance? Fans will have to wait on February 12, 2017, with host James Corden.
