A week after he became an iTunes legend, we go back to Chance the Rapper’s first Source cover
Picking the Rookie of the Year can sometimes be a daunting task, and require weeks to months of conversation and debate. Back in 2013, the conversation was brief. From the moment his free Acid Rap mixtape-album was so hotly coveted it leaked on the internet prior to its release–have you ever heard of a mixtape leaking?–to the next 12 months when he toured with everyone from Macklemore to Eminem, worked with Madonna, Erykah Badu, J. Cole and more, one thing was very clear. Chance The Rapper was the one.
Now, along with his literal band of brothers, Chance the Rapper has broken the rap internet again. Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment‘s Surf album, released for free on iTunes–yes, the button said “get” instead of “buy”–was downloaded a whopping 618,000 times in its first week of availability. Free or not, the statistics are staggering. If anyone was doubting Chance or his SoX movement, they aren’t now.
In the above video clip, we take you back to Halloween 2013, when Chance, his illustrious manager Pat The Manager, some friends, photographers, and Source staff headed out to an eerie loft in Bushwick, Brooklyn to shoot a Tim-Burton-inspired 2013 Rookie of the Year cover of The Source, featuring Mr. Acid Rap himself, Chance The Rapper.