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Chance The Rapper just got a dose of his own medicine, kind of. A leftover from Coloring Book featuring Big Sean just leaked out for free, but he isn’t feeling that at all.

When Chance The Rapper rapped, “I don’t make songs for free, I make ’em for freedom” on “Blessings” he really meant that.

While he has pretty much become the poster boy for free music in Hip Hop, Chance isn’t feeling the idea of his music being given away for free. Especially if it’s not in his control.

Today [July 20], the Big Sean-featured track “Living Single,” a song he said “they” prevented from appearing on Coloring Book, leaked out and it’s currently spreading all over the web.

While fans are happy that they finally get to hear the song, Chance isn’t too happy that the song got out. He took to Twitter to voice his displeasure.

He said:

I didn’t release a new song, one of my songs were leaked. Idk how to explain to you how that feels, but I doesn’t feel good.

Obviously, no one wants something that belongs to them to get taken away and given to someone else. But, it is an interesting situation to see an artist who has built his career off giving music away for free not “feel good” about their music getting out, for free.

In an interview with Fast Company, who named Chance one of “The 100 Most Creative People In Business,” the rapper said the only reason that he hasn’t printed up vinyl copies of his albums is because he “can’t figure out how to distribute it without selling it.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone he said, “I might not ever drop a for-sale project. Maybe I’ll just make my money touring.”

Statements like those would lead most to believe that Chance doesn’t care how his music gets out, as long as it gets to his fans.

Apparently that is not the case. Team Chance may be about giving away music for free, but it still has to be on their terms. It is a business after all you know?

Which is why Coloring Book was “free” album was only available on Apple Music when it was initially released and was later made available on other subscription streaming services like Spotify and Tidal. It appeared on DatPiff for a hot second before it was yanked down by the powers that be, because well, DatPiff is actually free.

Who knows, maybe Chance wanted it on all platforms, not just the ones you have to pay for and “they” stopped him from having it that way.

In his interview with Beats 1’s Zane Lowe, Chance talked about the roadblocks he hit in putting Coloring Book together. Especially when it came to the big name artist that were a part of it.

“I don’t think there will ever be a release from me again that feels controlled,” he vowed.

Later in the interview he said, “Most people are signed; say you make a project and there’s 12 Universal artists on it, and they find out you’ve recorded with these artists and plan to make videos with this artists, and they find out you plan to release it for free. And that’s when you get phone calls from people saying they own your friends and you can’t release it without their input.”

All of that said, the takeaway here is that just because Chance gives away his music for free doesn’t mean that anyone else gets to do the same without him feeling a type of way about it.

Seeing “free” music get stolen and then leaked is yet another twist in the tornado that has become the music industry in 2016.

 

Photo: Instagram