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Chance The Rapper was once the saving grace of hip-hop, initially turning heads with his trailblazing Acid Rap mixtape in 2013. Following 10 Day the year before, Chance fully encapsulated his vision, presenting his blend of jazz and psychedelic rap to the world alongside guests like Vic Mensa, Noname, Childish Gambino, Saba, and Action Bronson.

Chance took things to the next level in 2016, recruiting an all-star cast for his well-received Coloring Book mixtape, which upped his superstardom with features from Kanye West, Young Thug, Justin Bieber, and 2 Chainz. That same year, he landed a bucket list feature on ‘Ultralight Beam’, the opening track on Ye’s The Life of Pablo.

Things were looking up for Chance until 2019, when he released his debut studio album, The Big Day. The project was stacked with big names like Megan Thee Stallion, DaBaby, Gucci Mane, Lil Durk, Nicki Minaj, and many others, including some truly standout career moments on ‘Do You Remember’, ‘We Go High’, and ‘Sun Come Down’.

However, those bright moments weren’t enough to sway the internet from memes about Chance’s lyrics. His marriage to Kirsten Corley influenced the album, with hip-hop fans plaguing social media with “I love my wife” jokes. Many people also criticised his song ‘Hot Shower’ for its unseriousness. Since then, Chance has gone six years without releasing a project, but that’s set to change on August 15th.

After years of teasing, his long-awaited new album, Star Line, finally has a release date. Since his last album arrived, Chance has had a musical reset and divorced from his wife, the mother of his two children, Kensli and Marli. Given the reception of The Big Day and the time that has elapsed since, he could either be attempting to win people over again or feel at ease knowing the pressure is off.

Chance first announced Star Line in the summer of 2022. Appearing on Sway in the Morning, he revealed the album was inspired by Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey, who launched a shipping line in 1919 and connected countries worldwide.

“I was inspired by Marcus Garvey in the early 1900s — 1919 through 1922 — so 100 years ago now. He started and ran this very important, integral shipping line,” he said. “He had a fleet of ships, these giant ocean liners which are the size of cruise ships, that he owned and funded with common Black folks’ money.

“But what he did with it was he created a trade route between the United States, all of the Black islands and the continent of Africa, and that created a network of people where people from all over the world were interconnected and working with each other and taking trips together, and created this connectivity that didn’t exist before.”

Since the initial announcement, Chance has returned with loose tracks to taste what’s to come. In 2024 alone, he released ‘Buried Alive’, ‘Stars Out’, ‘Bad Boys 2’, ‘333’, and the DJ Premier-produced ‘Together’. While the latter showcased his storytelling, his latest single, ‘Tree’ with Lil Wayne and Smino, is the opposite – a fun record about weed that interpolates India Arie’s 2001 song, ‘Video’. It’s hard to tell which route he’s going down, but it’ll be interesting to see how he’s evolved in the past six years.