Chance The Rapper is currently celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Acid Rap, and he’s now shared some new details surrounding the project that gave him his big break.
During a chat with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden on Thursday (August 31), the Chicago native opened up about his early experiences in the music industry. When asked about the toughest challenge he ever experienced during his come-up, he referred back to touring Europe in 2013.
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“The toughest challenge I ever experienced was I went on tour with Macklemore,” he explained. “Macklemore is an amazing, amazing person and helped me out tremendously as well. But his shows, it was in Europe and it was, I think 38 dates, all 20,000 capacity rooms, all like off markets too, like Poland and Dusseldorf.
“These people didn’t speak English at all. And not only did they not speak English, he sold out all these shows before I was announced on the ticket.
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“So it’s really bad when you go to a show and there’s an opener that you don’t want to see. It’s way worse when it’s a surprise opener that you don’t want to see. That’s speaking a different language and Black, a lot of negatives on top of each other for the Swedish crowds. So I’m dealing with that.”
He concluded: “When I came home, I got to finally feel at the end of that year when I went on my own solo tour, I got to feel having my own crowd, selling my own tickets and really built my whole off that tour.”
Chance The Rapper’s rise in the Hip Hop space was sudden and swift. He only had one full-length mixtape out before Acid Rap dropped, and when it did, he instantly became one of the hottest artists of that era.
“The year Acid Rap dropped, I started out and went on tour with Mac Miller, rest in peace, my guy, amazing dude, changed my life in a lot of ways,” he said about his career arc. “But I went on tour with Mac Miller at the end of March and my mixtape dropped while I was on tour, and I literally watched people go from yawning and looking at their clocks while I was on stage to singing along to jumping along. I watched that.”
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So far, Chance has played two shows commemorating the mixtape’s milestone. The first one took place at Chicago’s United Center on August 19 and the second in New York City’s Barclays Center on August 26.
The third and final celebratory concert is scheduled to take place in Los Angles’ Kia Forum on September 21. Purchase your tickets here.
