A 23-year-old rapper who refuses to sign a record deal is making history at the 2017 Grammys

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Chance the Rapper is the most talented rapper of his generation and a pioneer in the music industry. His latest album, "Coloring Book," released in May, is one of the the year's best-reviewed albums. It's the first streaming-only album to chart on Billboard's ranking.

This year, the Grammys made streaming-only albums available for awards consideration for the first time. Chance, whose real name is Chancellor Bennett, made history again as "Coloring Book" received several nominations, including one for Best Rap Album. It's the first streaming-only album to be nominated in any category.

Miraculously, Chance has done all of this without a label supporting him. He's turned down record deals from numerous labels, and depends on word-of-mouth and his Soundcloud account for distribution.

Meet the most successful fully-independent musician of our era:

Chance the Rapper calls his albums "mixtapes." He recorded his first one in his senior year of high school.

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He formally kicked off his career with the song "Windows." It got him some attention in Chicago's hip hop scene, and Chance spent another eight months tinkering with the rest of the album.

 

His first album — "10 Day" — gave Chance a cult following.

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The album was released in 2012 got over 400,000 downloads on the music-sharing site DatPiff and got Chance a cult following.

It's called "10 Day" because he wrote it during a 10-day suspension from high school.

A few months later, Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) featured him on his song "They Don't Like Me."

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Listen to it here.

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