In a recent interview with Billboard, Chance the Rapper announced that he is releasing a new album, called Surf, by the end of the year – hopefully.

Photo credit: Sharon Alagna

Following the precedent set by his 2013 album Acid Rap, Surf will be available for free. Chance considers this new album to be the “first Social Experiment Project”, rather than a Chance the Rapper album, because it showcases the talented members of his touring band.

“The band has been backing me on a lot of the shows, so when you go to a Chance the Rapper show it’s billed as a Chance the Rapper show, and even though you bought a ticket for a Chance the Rapper show, you end up going to a Social Experiment concert, you know?” he told Billboard. “And you get the full experience of the musicality of four seasoned players. It’s something different.”

He also explained to Billboard that he and the band have been influenced by outside sources. “We’ve been trying to take in all these cool, different outside cultural experiences and make that into a free listenable project,” he said.

They have been working on the album in Los Angeles with help from Frank Ocean and producer Rick Rubin.

So, what can fans expect from “Chance the Rapper & The Social Experiment”?

Well, he gave PasteMagazine.com some insight into a new track, “No Better Blues”, that is available via SoundCloud. “No Better Blues” begins with a series of slow claps and evolves into a laundry list of things that will make the listener pause and wonder, unless they know that Chance was joking.

He explained:

“I was talking with the guys trying to make a song about things that I actually hate, and then it became more of a satirical thing where it was to a point where I was like, ‘I’m going to write about things I couldn’t possibly hate.’”

Check out the list of things Chance ‘couldn’t possibly hate’, below.