Signing a contract stating you will offer exclusive rights for your music that probably run a pre-determined timeframe (i.e. March 7th-March 21st) sounds eerily similar to a label requiring you to churn out music on a set day. Chanc is mostly independent in that he creates the music he wants, but he still signed a contract with Apple to release it and I wouldn't say he's completely unsigned. When you couple that with Chance openly stating that he fell back into Xan abuse, and didn't actually create a lot of Coloring Book until two months prior to release it sounds like he sprung a half cooked project due to a deadline.

Chance could have farted into a mic over the sounds of white noise and whale calls, and some people are so in love with his positivity that they would herald the album a perfect 10. Fact is that it it's a good album, not a great, and offers some really cool room for improvement.

Tl;dr Chance is literally the mixtape/album debate but with signed/unsigned. Say he's independent, but remember he still signed a contract to release a worthwhile project through Apple.