‘Woo woo,” begins Chance the Rapper, greeting his Manchester flock, who return the phrase in kind. Moments later, he’s getting the entire crowd to go “Mmmm mmmm” and then – as the words are helpfully displayed on screens behind him – “Got damn.” None of this is exactly how you’d expect an internationally successful rap star to begin a sell-out concert on British shores, but right now it feels as if Chancelor Bennett could rap the proverbial phone book and turn it into a hit. There is so much cheering that the show feels like a victory lap within the first 10 minutes.
He’s certainly had an incredible year. In May, just four years after he started recording, his fourth mixtape, Coloring Book, made him the first artist to get an album in the Billboard chart based on streams alone and without a record company. He is a true cottage industry success, although he has made judicious interactions with the music business. Coloring Book features contributions from mainstream till-kerchingers such as Kanye West, Justin Bieber and Young Thug. There have been select commercial tie-ins with Apple Music and even an ad for KitKat. However, the foundation of his rise has been the support of the hip-hop community, along with euphoric shows like this.
Chance is a livewire performer who keeps his audience on their toes, whether humbly thanking them for their support, becoming a human beatbox or shimmying from stage left to right as if by magic footwork, a la Michael Jackson. At one point, he disappears completely, returning moments later (to chants of “Chance the Rapper!”) like a second coming.
Crucially, he has the tunes to pull it off, and a terrific band, the Social Experiment (including that not-exactly hip-hop staple, a trumpet), who deliver songs which are both boundary-pushing hip-hop and audibly steeped in black music history, from doo wop to soul to funk to exuberant electro (the particularly storming All Night) and especially gospel. Religion and spirituality features everywhere from visuals of stained glass windows to the innumerable biblical references in his flow. Another powerful driving force is nostalgia, especially for childhood innocence. When this is served in a song as potent as Same Drugs (which uses drugs as a metaphor for growing up, complete with beautiful lyrics about books and bedtimes and “wide-eyed kids being kids”), resistance is futile.
The gig has several dramatic moments, such as the one where he quietly comments that America has always treated its black people badly (cue another crowd chant: “Donald Trump!”), and then urges solidarity through “the word, the gospel and the music”.
None of this should work for a youngish crowd in largely secular Great Britain. However, when they form a massed gospel choir and raise hands to sing the glorious Blessings (“When praise goes up, blessings come down”), and confetti falls as if from the skies, it really does feel like rap as a religious experience.
• At Brixton Academy, London, 22 November. Box office: 020-7771 3000. At Manchester O2 Apollo, 26 November. Box office: 0161-273 6921.
