Broad Shoulders

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Broad Shoulders is Taylor Bennett’s debut full-length album, released independently in December 2015 and later distributed by his Tay Bennett Entertainment imprint. Across ten trac ks and about 37 minutes, Bennett steps out from the shadow of his older brother Chance the Rapper to establish his own sound, building a project with no sampled material so he could, in his words, show listeners “what Taylor Bennett sounds like.” Songs such as Happy Place, Wasting Time, Smile, Fall Back Fools, H.Y.B.L. (How You Been Lately), Favorite Drink (feat. King Louie & Joey Purp), Dancing in the Rain, and the title track Broad Shoulders weave together warm, melodic hooks with introspective verses focused on relationships, self‑growth, and navigating young adulthood in Chicago.The album’s emotional centerpiece is Broad Shoulders, a duet with Chance the Rapper that functions both as a family moment and a statement about mentorship and becoming your own person. Over a gentle, gospel‑tinged beat produced by Ludlow, Chance raps about wanting to offer guidance “like a dad,” tying shoes tight and warning about “danger zones,” while Bennett reflects on listening to criticism and learning from those around him in order to grow as an artist and as a human being. Elsewhere on the album, Bennett’s delivery and sing‑rap inflections inevitably invite comparisons to early Chance (10 Day era), but critics note that his writing leans more consistently into breakup narratives, questions of dignity after heartbreak, and a slightly more somber, reflective tone, while still maintaining the “good vibes and introspective narratives” associated with Chicago’s Social Experiment orbit. Taken together, Broad Shoulders plays like a coming‑of‑age record: a confident, sample‑free debut where Bennett claims his own lane in mid‑2010s indie hip‑hop, even as he openly acknowledges the familial and local influences that helped get him there. Show more