Music

Chance the Rapper Reflects on Performing for 17 People and His Come-Up on New Song "3333"

He also gets honest about low ticket sales for shows.

Chance the Rapper performing
(Photo by Debra L Rothenberg/WireImage)

Chance the Rapper takes a walk down memory lane in his new song, “3333” that features singer Rachel Robinson.

In the track and video shared on X, Chance gets reflective as he raps about some of the experiences he’s had to get to where he’s at today.

From performing at birthday parties as a courtesy, to now selling thousands of tickets for a show, he’s had a hell of a journey — using the number in the song’s title to explain important moments in his career.

Towards the end of the song, he gets brutally honest about not selling enough tickets for the Minnesota State Fair. “The venue holds 14,000, at this point you should probably think of pulling out,” he raps from the perspective of his agent. Instead of canceling, he declares he’ll still be performing.

Chance hasn’t clarified whether “3333” will be on his upcoming project Star Line. Speaking about the body of work on Instagram Live, he declines to call it a full-length LP but says that it’s something “different.”

“Stop calling it ‘the album.’ And I don’t mean that in an ungrateful way,” he said. “I’m grateful that people are putting in my comments, ‘Drop the album’. I’m not going to drop the album until y’all start calling it Star Line. I hope that y’all understand that. I understand how all this stuff works.

“‘Drop the album.’ That’s for all the other artists,” he continued. “That’s for everybody else, whose work I also appreciate. But what I’m doing is something different. It’s something very specific. It’s called Star Line.”

Chance has really turned up the heat this year. He’s dropped new songs like “Buried Alive,” “Stars Out,” and “Together” with DJ Premier in anticipation of the release of his new project.

In June, we spoke with Chance who confirmed that his new body of work is “83 percent done.” He also revealed that the positive reception to the music that he’s dropped form it so far has made him very confident.

“There is an immense amount of pressure when you’re a famous rapper,” he said. “I represent a lot of people. I represent my family and I represent friends, and whatever I say on wax, especially in this digital age, it’ll be around forever. And depending on how the internet reacts to it and presents it later, it can be regurgitated as a completely different thing than what I meant.”

“I have to be careful with what I write, what I say, and definitely what I put out,” he added. “But I love that right now, I’m so confident and so good that it really feels like a great opportunity every time I drop.”

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