Acid Rap

The cover of Acid Rap shows Chance the Rapper staring straight out at the viewer, wide-eyed, in a tie-dye tank top, set against a violet sunset sky. It was made by the Chicago artist Brandon Breaux, who also made the cover for Chance's first mixtape, 10 Day. Breaux worked from a photograph he took himself at South by Southwest in Austin, where Chance performed in a tie-dye top that Breaux had made and given him. The stage lights happened to match the colours of the shirt. Breaux then painted over the image digitally, removing his business partner from the frame.

Breaux described the idea as the feeling of "someone tripping on acid watching the sun set." He wanted Chance's face to work like a constellation in the sky, and stars and sky became a signature across his covers. He told The Fader that the record showed Chance "exploring/experimenting." The bugged-out expression and swimming colours made the mixtape's psychedelic title literal without showing a single drug.

Acid Rap became the middle panel of a trilogy that closed with Coloring Book in 2016, each cover a tightly composed portrait of Chance against a coloured ground. Breaux said his aim was to "present the work like fine art" at a time when mixtape covers were often throwaway. The approach gave an unsigned artist a visual identity as strong as any major-label campaign. The mixtape was released as a free download on 30 April 2013.