After a 'hectic' few years, Chance the Rapper finds new life in a 10-year-old mixtape
LOS ANGELES — There was hardly a better time to be an aspiring rapper coming out of Chicago than 2012.
That year, label scouts began flocking to the city like never before, allured by Chief Keef's thunderous "Finally Rich" mixtape, along with buzzing music by King Louie and Sasha Go Hard. While drill music ran the city, heading the left-of-center-scene was a squeaky-voiced talent named Chance the Rapper, who'd just turned a suspension from high school into a breakout mixtape, "10 Day."
"[MTV2's 'Sucker Free'] did an episode in Chicago," Chance recalled, speaking between hits of a vape pen at the Pendry West Hollywood. "Within a week, every label flying their reps to Chicago, trying to find the best drill artist and the best 'alt' artist. I, my friends, people I grew up with, anyone who'd started rapping in 2011 or 2012 were taking label meetings. A lot got signed."
Famously, the man born Chancellor Bennett, now 30, would spurn the labels and go at it as an independent artist. In 2013, he released "Acid Rap,"
