Chance The Rapper is only 29 but given that his debut mixtape, 10 Day, came out when he was just a teenager in 2012, he’s been rapping for a long time. All the while, Chance has been dealing with fans/haters saying he’s “fallen off,” that he’s not as good now as he once was. In a recent interview on Breakfast Club, he offered a passionate response to that.
Charlamagne Tha God asked how Chance deals with online criticism, specifically mentioning that a common theme is people saying he “fell off.” Through smiles, Chance replied:
“Man. I don’t know. To me, it’s like, I could do one of two things: I could either agree with it, or I could live my life, right? If I agree with it, then that means the Breakfast Club fell off, ’cause y’all don’t have people that fell off sitting in your chair, I don’t think, usually. And so I feel like I gotta stay on my path. N****s was saying I fell off when I was in high school! I made four mixtapes! N****s was telling me in high school, ‘Your last tape was better!’ I’m like, ’N****, I’m 15!’ But it’s like, man: I can joke about it, but it is tough, but it’s like, I don’t know, what can I say? Tell people that my feelings are hurt? Like, I don’t know.
The best thing that I could do is like… man, when I get up with Vic [Mensa] and we just go and we just write and we just make sh*t, it’s so undeniable: I’m so good at rapping! I’m sorry I keep saying that, but it’s just like, at this point, I got to just put the words on the screen because motherf*ckers really loving that sh*t. It gives people goosebumps. So I’m like, I could listen to people that think about artists like they’re f*ckin’ Pokémon cards, like these commodified trading cards. It’s like, ‘Oh, you’re f*ckin’ 2K rating just went down.’ F*ck them n****s! These n****s is lame as hell! They never been on! If I fell off, at least I was on, you know what I’m saying?”
Watch the full interview below, with the talk about falling off starting at around 41 minutes into the video.