I’m Still At My Old Church
Chance The Rapper’s Biggest Flex on Coloring Book
There was something special about Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book run. It’s easy to distill that era of Chance music down to ‘God Raps’ but there was a depth there that Columbus, Ohio writer Hanif Abdurraqib speaks to in the first essay of his book, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us:
“Chance made the only thing in 2016 that fit unconditionally. There is something about his joy that makes it stretch longer—perhaps it demands nothing immediate from a listener or observer, except to take it in and let it be a brief and necessary bandage over anything that hurts.”
2016, a year that led to great disillusionment for many, also gave way to some amazing albums—to name a few: Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Frank Ocean’s Blonde, Solange’s A Seat at the Table, Rihanna’s Anti & Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo. While the albums named all wrestled with darker subject matters, Chance the Rapper, with the release of his third mixtape Coloring Book, injected some much-needed optimism. I might even call it hope, a word often related with Chance’s Chicago neighbor, Barack Obama, whose presidency ended in 2016.
It felt like everything Chance touched that year turned to gold—from his verse on Kanye’s “Ultralight Beam” to his live TV performances. I still get weepy watching his Jimmy Fallon performance of “Blessings (Reprise)” with Anthony Hamilton, Ty Dolla $ign, Raury & DRAM. It truly felt like every Chance offering one-upped the next.
But that feeling left as Chance followed up Coloring Book with his first debut album, The Big Day. This album, closer in subject matter to the mixtape before it, began to make Chance’s outward devotion to God through his music more eye-roll-worthy than worthy of praise.
Chance became more vocal about his Christian faith on Coloring Book—going as far as having his cousin Nicole sing Chris Tomlin’s “How Great is Our God” on “How Great” and Kirk Franklin direct the choir on “Finish Line / Drown.” The night Coloring Book dropped, a devout Christian myself at the time, I remember standing on the couch at my college house and joyously singing with my friends, “When the praises go up, the blessings come down.” Chance’s references to Black worship made me feel like he saw me, and I could see myself in his music.
Nearly six years since then, now unsure how to concisely label my faith—or lack thereof at times, I revisited Coloring Book and was taken back to the joy I felt listening to this project as a senior in college. Yelling the lyrics to “No Problem.” Crooning to “Same Drugs.” And then I got to “Angels,” one of the first singles Chance dropped from Coloring Book after he premiered the song on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, featuring fellow Chicago native Saba.
“Angels” is a fun song. If you haven’t seen the music video in a while, check it out above because there’s no way you can watch it without smiling. The production from Lido and Chance’s band, The Social Experiment, makes you want to dance—and the refrain, “Na, na, na, na, I got angels,” is easy to pick up and hard not to sing along to.
While listening to “Angels” this time around, a song I’ve played more than I can count, I was struck by a line in the second verse where Chance is deep in his pocket and flexes, “I’m still at my old church.”
Yes, this feels like a flex to me.
As someone who has several “old churches” from years of moving homes and examining and re-examining my faith, I long for the unfettered optimism that keeps you in a place of worship, the communion that keeps you inside when that church’s policies and beliefs keep so many out.
The thing about Coloring Book that drew me in is the way it took me back to my mom dragging me to church. Me trying to act like I was asleep so maybe, just maybe, Mom would decide she didn’t want to wake me and we’d be able to listen to the message from home. It took me back to listening to Heaven 600 in Grandma Gwen’s car and muttering Kirk Franklin’s “Brighter Day” under my breath. To a time where I mimicked the pastor’s inflection and could damn near finish each one of his sentences because repetition and rhythm moved the Spirit every Sunday.
When I graduated from college, I moved from North Carolina to Colorado Springs and was off on my own. I had what I thought was my dream job with a predominantly white, Christian nonprofit. But after the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile by police, I knew I needed to surround myself with more Black people and what better place to be in community with other Black people than church.
That next Sunday, I attended a Black Baptist church around the corner from my apartment and was immediately moved by music that felt so familiar. By myself, without having to worry about anyone judging me, I sang and dance like I was trying to make up for lost time. And when the pastor said the names of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, I felt affirmed in my pain.
Immediately after the service, a group of people who looked around my age, who I recognized as being in the choir, approached me and asked if I sang and if I wanted to try out for the choir. Most importantly, they asked if I wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse with them. After overstaying our welcome at lunch and going to a movie that night, they adopted me into their friend group and gave me what I needed most in my new city: family.
The more time I spent with them, I learned most of them were gay and had to stay closeted at church. While I got to visit some of their jobs, I worried about how they’d be treated at mine because of their sexuality. Eventually I left my job and the church because I recognized they were harmful to queer people.
Although I’ve tried other churches since then, nothing lasted. I’ve also realized they didn’t need to last. The things I felt most connected to at church—the friendships, the music, the inspiration and purpose—exist beyond the walls of the church. Without all the pressure and weirdness.
While I miss the hope that made me recite with Chance the Rapper, “I speak to God in public,” I can no longer unsee the harmful environments and policies hidden within many of our Christian churches.
Recently, I watched Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed, the docuseries that spotlights the rise of Hillsong Church and some of the harm its leaders have allegedly caused along the way, and I was taken back to a time when Hillsong’s music was all I listened to. I loved that the megachurch I attended, Elevation Church, modeled themselves after Hillsong. But behind the bright lights and expensive sneakers, women, children, and queer people were hurting with few people to turn to.
Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book run oozed childlike wonder at a time when it felt like I still had it. And although church feels less like home now, often reminding me more of the harm it causes than the good it does, in a more expansive way, I’m still at my old church when I spend hours with my friends who all get their phones out at the end of the night so we can schedule our next hangout because we’re adults and, if it’s not on the Google Calendar, I’m not doing it. When I lay in bed with my wife and laugh at a random TikTok until we’re both crying. When I watch Saba and Chance juke in the “Angels” video and can’t help but smile because I know they’ve seen hurt but I also know they’ve known joy.
