Ya while that ' s true , I ' d still argue that the distinction was still meaningless , especially for an independent artist . Acid Rap was made using beats from professional producers , featuring professional rappers , and mixed and mastered with professional engineers . He made that project the same way many others would make albums , just that he had no label backing . Macklemore pretty much did the exact same thing in 2012 but chose to call it an album though . At the end of the day , whether or not he chose to call it a mixtape or an album had no effect on the quality or the structure of the project . It still looks like a semantic designation in my eyes . Also , according to the article , Chance doesn ' t seem like he ' s operating under the assumption that albums need to be sold . He also says that he might not even do a traditional release . It really does look like he chooses to label his projects based on where he draws the line artistically instead of whether or not the project is up for sale .