Last summer, I blogged about Chance the Rapper, at the release of his excellent new mixtape, Coloring Book.

Chance isn’t signed to a label, and released the mixtape – like his prior two – for free online. As a result, none of his albums were, at the time, eligible for Grammy consideration.

But, prompted by a Change.org petition that garnered more than 40,000 signatures, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences updated their rules at the end of last year, to keep up with the current realities of the digital music world. Now, unsigned artists and streaming music are both eligible. And, as a result, Chance became the first unsigned artist, and the first streaming-only artist, to win a Grammy, with three much-deserved nods for Best New Artist, Best Rap Album (for Coloring Book), and Best Rap Performance (for “No Problem”).

Though it’s plagued with Grammy-standard sound engineering issues (Chance is mic’ed low enough that he’s barely audible for large stretches), his performance last-night – a mashup of “How Great” and “All We Got,” with snippets of “No Problem” and “Blessings,” and featuring Kirk Franklin, Francis and the Lights, Tamela Mann, and a full gospel choir – makes clear that he deserved the wins:

Congrats, Chance; I’m looking forward to hearing what you do next.