He mis-managed his career
This is the problem with being independent as well

You don’t have a record label that knows years and years of a***ytics, trends, sales & marketing. Chance The Rapper put music out @ his own pace that he felt comfortable with for his own life. But that is what killed his momentum as well. A record label would’ve never allowed him to take two separate 3 year breaks between projects

2013 Acid Rap
2016 Coloring Book
2019 The Big Day

That reads like an artist that already had an established career and is getting ready to hang it up; not like someone who’s first big break is that first project and is a new emerging artist on the scene

And you also don’t have the money to pay for big features; so any big feature you have is usually relationship based. And artists can be your fans too but once they aren’t and they don’t want to make music with you the same way that your fans don’t want to listen...

I felt like he put too much importance on releasing a “project”, like bro, nobody actually cares if this is an album or a mixtape. Only you do. Putting too much importance on all these little things that don’t matter instead of just releasing music on a frequent enough basis to hold over your specific audience will kill your career

Honestly Chance is one of the few independent artist that couldve took those longs breaks and not be damaging. The issue is, his projects became career damaging. Acide Rap propelled him but CB & TBD never captured that same quality or improved. CB wasnt even bad really but it did alienate his older fans for the most part & TBD part in this goes without saying

Having a three year break between projects when each project is a career shock is a issue

He did a complete 180 with his style after Acid Rap.