While fans did get a re-release of Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama last year, Chance The Rapper has remained somewhat dormant since his debut album The Big Day. He did drop the loose single “Found You” with Ludacris, and contributed to songs like G Herbo’s “PTSD,” Brandy’s “Baby Mama,” Justin Bieber’s “Holy,” and MadeinTYO’s “BET Uncut.”
Today, the Chicago star makes an official return with “The Heart & The Tongue,” a track he co-produced with DexLvL that sees him on a stream of consciousness about his life and what’s been going on around him:
“My heart and mind are beefing, I call ‘em Rhyme and Reason, they always going head to head, I’m trying to Siamese ‘em, my father got a special set of skills like Liam Neeson, he told me faith and squinted eyes can turn the blind Venetian/
I seen the sign, I’m in the den, I’m with the lions sleeping, I seen the wine, I seen the water turn to bright Tahitian, the heart is somewhere on Hawaiian beaches/”
Shot by Troy G., the accompanying visual for “The Heart & The Tongue” shows Chance The Rapper performing the track in different rooms of what’s presumed to be his massive residence — including a living room, a home theater, and his personal studio. The clip also acts as a lyric visual, with each word from the song’s lyrics flashing on the center of the screen in real time.
The Big Day was released in 2019, and saw 22 tracks with additional features from John Legend, Smino, DaBaby, Ari Lennox, Megan Thee Stallion, Gucci Mane, Lil Durk, Nicki Minaj, Chance’s brother and fellow artist Taylor Bennett, and more. While somewhat polarizing from a critical standpoint, the album still landed at the number two spot on the Billboard 200 thanks to 108,000 album equivalent units sold during its debut.
Press play on “The Heart & The Tongue” below.