In this edition of In Sight Out, a series of podcasts from Pitchfork that explores new perspectives on music, art, and culture, Pitchfork contributor Adrienne Samuels Gibbs speaks with Chance the Rapper.
Chancelor Bennett, aka Chance the Rapper, is one of the most exciting artists making music right now. A cultural influencer, thought leader, and global star, he has won three Grammys, hosted “Saturday Night Live,” and collaborated with everyone from Kanye West to Justin Bieber. And he’s only 24 years old. Since the release of his first mixtape, 10 Day, in 2012, through his breakthrough Acid Rap in 2013 and landmark Coloring Book in 2016, Chance has upended popular music industry norms by refusing to sign to a record label, and always giving his music away for free.
But even as he has become more and more successful, Chance has remained strongly grounded in his hometown of Chicago. He donated a million dollars and raised even more for the Chicago Public School system through his philanthropic organization Social Works, and went head to head with the governor of Illinois over budget cuts for public schools. He sits on the board of the DuSable Museum of African American History. He’s given away book bags to kids and coats to the homeless. His lyrics often pay homage to the South Side, where he grew up.
So it was an honor to host an evening with Chance at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, in conversation with Pitchfork contributor Adrienne Samuels Gibbs. The day after the event took place, Chance tweeted that it was “prolly my best interview.”
This podcast is also available on iTunes. In Sight Out is presented by MailChimp.
Elia Einhorn: Welcome. I’m Elia Einhorn, co-curator of In Sight Out, a collaboration between Pitchfork and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago that explores new perspectives on music, art, and culture. In Sight Out is presented by MailChimp: build your brand, sell more stuff.
Chancelor Bennett, aka Chance the Rapper, is one of the most exciting artists making music right now. A cultural influencer, thought leader, and global star, he’s won three Grammys, hosted Saturday Night Live, and collaborated with everyone from Kanye West to Justin Bieber, and he’s only 24 years old.
Since the release of his first mixtape 10 Day in 2012 to his breakthrough Acid Rap in 2013 and landmark Coloring Book in 2016, Chance has upended popular music industry norms by refusing to sign to a record label, and always giving his music away for free. But even as he’s become more and more successful, Chance has remained strongly grounded in his hometown of Chicago. He donated $1 million and raised even more through the Chicago public school system through his philanthropic organization Social Works and went head-to-head with the governor of Illinois over budget cuts for public schools.
He sits on the board of the DuSable Museum of African American History. He’s given away book bags to kids and winter coats to the homeless. His lyrics often pay homage to the South Side where he grew up. So it was an honor to host an evening with Chance at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, in conversation with Pitchfork contributor Adrienne Samuels Gibbs. The day after the event took place, Chance tweeted that it was “Probably my best interviewer.” Take a listen.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Good evening. Thanks for being here.
Chance: Good evening. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you guys for being here.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Yeah. This is exciting. So let’s just get straight to it. Here is the top question of the day, because we all know all about you. You’re on Twitter, you work with the Obamas, you’ll be at Harold’s, you’re buying out movie theaters, you’re helping the kids, you’re protesting, you’re bringing people to vote, and you’re winning Grammys. How exactly do you set these intentions? Do you just wait until January 1st and say, “this is my year, this is what I’m going to do, week-to-week, day-to-day.” Is this super intentional? How is it all working?
Chance: That’s a great question. My team would probably tell you best. There’s not a lot of time that I allow between the inception of an idea and the execution. We rush a lot of stuff, but we dream really ambitiously. I work with a large group of awesome people, mostly from Chicago, but from all over the country, and all over the world. I come up with crazy ideas or young people that work with me come up with crazy ideas and then we set an ambitious date to get it done by and then eventually it gets done.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Just as simple as that?
Chance: Yeah. It doesn’t always get done on the execution date that we set. It doesn’t work like that but we try not to tell ourselves “no” too much or that won’t work or finding ways to poke holes in a theory. We just say, “It would be dope if we did this,” and then we try and make it happen.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: “It would be dope if we did this.”
Chance: Yeah.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Okay, so tell me about Slice. It would be dope if you starred in this movie, and it came out. So, when? What? How?
Chance: So Slice is a film that one of my best friends, this guy Austin Vesely, directed all my videos from my first video that was on 10 Day. It was called “Fuck You Tahm Bout,” up to “Juice” and “Angels” and “Sunday Candy.” He’s one of my main collaborators, one of the people when I didn’t have enough money to get on the train and shit. This was one of my guys, and he’s always been an amazing writer, and a full-blown filmmaker, but he worked with me, and met me halfway on music videos.
But yeah, he had this idea of this horror film, this horror comedy about a pizza delivery massacre that’s going on and there’s all these awesome people in it. Hannibal Buress... I don’t know why I just stopped on Hannibal Buress, but I was thinking as I was talking, I don’t know how much I can talk about the movie. But it’s my guy’s movie. He knows I love to act. I know he loves, and is amazing at, writing so we came together on it. It’s done. I don’t know when it’s coming out or maybe I do know and I can’t tell you but I can’t wait to see it.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: I can’t wait to see it. I’m sure everybody would agree. So the next thing I wonder, I just want to talk a little bit about your process of writing music, because you do such a great job of incorporating the Chicago canon into everything that you do. I feel it juking, jacking, and Harold’s and all those visceral things that are so Chicago, you use them and you embrace them. How do you know when you’re writing something though that it’s going to resonate with us in that way?
Chance: I don’t. I don’t. I’m so critical of my own work when I’m working on it. So for a long time, my process was I would work on something for hours, but more than likely days, and weeks, and months, at a time to try and get a dope product off and then usually somebody will send me a beat and I would feel it. Just to get down to the nitty-gritty, I type my raps. I know there’s niggas that write their raps down on paper, I don’t know. I used to type my raps, but I would attack it by trying to figure out a tone or a theme first. And sometimes before that, I try and figure out the perspective, who I’m talking to, the listener or myself, or who I’m talking about. I try and figure out perspective and theme first and then eventually the rhythm of it and freestyle with it. And then, eventually, spend hours and hours trying to write one verse and in between all of those processes, it allows so much time to be critical of yourself and be like, this shit sucks. This isn’t going to work, nobody’s going to understand.
Chance: But eventually, I spent a lot of time in Georgia, in Atlanta, and working with some artists that are really close friends of mine, Donald Glover, Quavo, and one of my biggest influencers right now is Young Thug. He’s really masterful. He engineers himself. He’s super dope and I don’t want to give away all his secrets, but he showed me a lot of stuff. And one of the things that has helped me a lot later in my career towards the end of Coloring Book and the stuff I’m working on now is a process called punch cutting. You basically instead of using a pen and trying to write an entire piece, and then attack it on the mic separately, and hope that all the inflections and rhythms that you had in mind when wrote it are still there, you write it by recording it. You go line by line. It’s hard to explain. I don’t know how many people use Pro Tools in their entertainer shit, but it’s a much easier, much cleaner, much faster process. To answer your question, I punch cut. That’s my process, I guess.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Ooh. See, I like that. That’s the process. Is it the same process now that it was... obviously it’s different. 10 Day, which was just revolutionary I think–
Chance: Thank you.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: ... and then you move up to Coloring Book, so–
Chance: I was 17. I didn’t know it was that good. Thank you.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: That’s what I mean. I’m still here. For Chance Four, are we done with the punch cutting?
Chance: No. I’m still punch cutting. I don’t know. So, for a long time my biggest goals when I was 13, before that when I was 10 and 11 years old, my favorite people in the world were MC Hammer, Kanye West... Yeah, you could clap for Kanye West. He’s not here, but he’s still Kanye... Dave Chapelle, and I wanted to be just like them. I adored them and studied them. I wanted my path to look a lot like theirs and I’ve mapped it out over this long period of time. I had seen Dave Chappelle walk away from a deal in the most powerful way, and with so much integrity and so much of a story behind it. It wasn’t just walking away from a deal. It was being in control and I wanted that for myself and I didn’t know in what capacity.
Chance: And Kanye, I just seen him work with all these artists and not just rapping but fully composing and putting together artists and creating collaborations and creating all these things. I knew I wanted to do that. I didn’t know in what capacity and the same thing with MC Hammer. I think he was the first rapper ever on SNL. You can fact-check that. I might be wrong. But I’m pretty sure he was the first rapper on SNL and he didn’t just perform, he hosted and he performed. And I remember that was a big goal.
Chance: And over time, you put all these different things in place to try and reach these goals and you think about it in the beginning when it’s on paper as this big board with the timeline of your life stretching across it, and it’s like, “I’ll eventually get that when I’m X amount of years old.” But when you’re working on it in the capacity that me and my team were working on it, it comes much faster and the opportunity to get a deal comes faster than you think it does and then you say “no.” Then it’s over. Then it’s like, “Okay, that shit’s already over.” Now I’m Dave Chapelle level.
Chance: And then Kanye, you get a chance to produce a project with your best friends and work with all these different collaborators and play SNL and play the Grammys and then it’s done. All these things you work on and you plan on, you really strategize. I’m pretty sure everybody strategizes on different points in their life, but you get that goal and then it’s done. And your... Not your opinion on success, but just the definition of success or what details it becomes different over time. I’m obviously not done rapping. It’s one of my favorite ways to express myself but I feel like there was space between all my projects because there was a different paradigm shift in my life at each point.
Chance: And I had been making mixtapes before 10 Day. I made four mixtapes when I was in high school, before I graduated, before 10 Day. And 10 Day, there were a lot of things in my life that were coming together to make that thing happen. It wasn’t just the suspension, it was a lot of things in my personal life. And with Acid Rap, there was a years time where I was working on little songs that went away because there was something that was happening with Acid Rap. Then the same thing, I waited three years between Acid Rap and Coloring Book. You just got to wait until it comes to and that why I think it’s important that artists have a certain control on when they releasee their stuff. And not just when they release their stuff, how often they work on it and when they choose to work on their music., it can’t be based on schedules and other people’s albums releasing and the best time to sell albums. It has to work for you. It has to mean something for you. I don’t know, that was another long answer.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: I love it.
Chance: I’m going to try and shorten them up now.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: I’m sitting here learning. I’m learning, it’s all about intentionality. So you did mention Donald Glover and he did say that unless you all came out with a mixtape, a bunch of 14 year olds would be beating him down. So what is the status of said collaboration?
Chance: I don’t know. I’ve been getting this question for so long. The truth is me and Donald perpetuated the story of a mixtape for a long time without ever working on it, or ever even looking at each other and saying, “We should do a mixtape.” It was just pushed on us. I’m going to say we did link up in Atlanta not that long ago and started working on some tracks. They’re amazing. They’re fire. They’re going to work. They’re going to touch people.
Chance: But I think it’s the same thing with him. Donald is 10 years older than me and I met him when I was 18 and I think he had just come off of filming his first special Weirdo and then he completely flipped and was like, “I’m about to go on tour as Childish Gambino.” And sold out venues all over the country and brought me along. I think he’s always had such a cool, firm grasp on who he wants to be when he wants to be that. And also still being all of those things at the same time. I don’t know how personal I can get–
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Personal.
Chance: We’re linking up, we get good time together. This is somebody that’s a real person in my life, a real friend of mine, somebody I talk to about a lot of different stuff. I love Atlanta. I think it’s one of the greatest things anybody ever made, and sometimes I forget that my friend made it because it’s so separate from my actual relationship with him. So we’re linking up next week to go... I’m not going to say where we’re going, but we’re going somewhere to go kick it family style, some cool stuff and we haven’t talked at all about recording. I don’t know.
Chance: It’s a cool relationship because I’m younger and I don’t have a TV show or a bunch of things I’m filming that I’m worried about at the same time as music. But, we both have kids and I respect his time and I think he also respects my time, so we don’t talk about it often. But we have some music. I don’t know, I’m just trying to give you the realest answer. The realest answer is I don’t know when it’s coming out. I don’t know when it’s getting worked on, but there’s something there to start off with. I don’t know.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Okay. I’ll take that for an answer. Sounds good. So I want to switch over to Social Works and switch over to all the people you been helping, all the kids you been helping and the adults, frankly. You have the homeless, you collected money for the coats for the homeless and of course, Chicago public schools and the recent school closure, which was so tragic–
Chance: Super wack.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Just one of those things. I’m sure a lot of people are asking you for help, a lot of people are giving you their moral budgets. How are you determining how you’re going to help? What is your process for figuring out who to help first, who to help second, and who to help now?
Chance: That’s a great question. I guess it comes to you when you have the opportunity. I don’t think there was a grandiose plan to be like, “All right, we’re going to go save the kids.” It doesn’t come to you like that. I had an opportunity through a tour that I was working on to donate some money, an excess of money between me and the venues and the promoters had come across, to donate $1 million in processing ticket fees to anybody.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Bless you.
Chance: I wanted to know if you guys were kind, thank you. But we came across excess money basically and there were all these ideas to donate it to different organizations. I’m not going to list them because then it sounds I’m saying this is more important but there’s all these different places that the money could go. And I knew we were in the budget crisis and there were so many different important city functions that weren’t being properly funded and I figured I could put something in the game in the city that would help.
Chance: The money thing wasn’t as important as all the waves that it made dipping into that. I got to see how CPS functions. I got to learn so much stuff. We’re the only district in the state that doesn’t have an elected school board. I got to see how different the facilities are on the south and west sides of the city are from the ones on the north side. Just really connect with these principals and they’re really like the CEOs of their schools or the CFOs. They’re working with tiny budgets, and finding out in the middle of the school year that their budgets are getting slashed in half, and trying to figure out how to pay all their teachers. And how their schools are going to have supplies and also being hung out to dry when things don’t work out.
Chance: I think there’s always somebody that needs help, right? And I was lucky enough to get involved with the school kids at CPS. I think... Nevermind. So basically, what I’m saying is there’s a lot of people that are in need. A lot of people that could use help and there’s no list of priority when we’re going to help people. We wait for the opportunities. Anybody that contacts the Social Works team via the website, socialworkchi.com, we answer all emails. I think more importantly than our funds, we’ve dispatched an amazing group of volunteers that are just readily available and there’s so many projects that they’ve worked on. I just want to shout them out, the Social Works team and the Social Works volunteers have been all over the city helping to build shelters, helping to pass out coats and food and clothing and information on shelters during the winter months, and just a lot of dope stuff.
Chance: I try and be there as often as I can. I’m not there all the time, but it’s very humanizing, and also gives me a sense of mortality when I go out and work on these projects with everybody, and actually in the city working hand-to -hand with people inside the schools. I don’t know. I went around asking for money for a long time. That was my job at one point, when we couldn’t get CPS the extra money, my job for a second became to go door-to-door to companies trying to get money for CPS.
Chance: But in that same time, number one I learned how much more important my time was, not always but how much more beneficial my time and my actual hands could be at these different facilities than money. And then also, got to stop focusing so much on the funding and start looking on the spending. How CPS, how Rahm Emanuel spends money in the city and where they spend it and who, if anyone, is held accountable when funds are misused or when schools get closed.
Chance: I went hard for CPS for a long time, and doing that work in the schools, it got me closer to the students and the faculty in the schools and the teachers and allowed me to step back and understand the difference between CPS, the students, the teachers, the faculty, and CPS, basically the business. I was like, “Nevermind,” then I did it anyway. Let’s just keep going.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Well, I know they appreciate it. I talked to a bunch of principals who just appreciate being thought of, let alone being gifted enough money to run an arts program or anything like that. We are sitting here in a museum, so I am curious, who do you collect? You collect anybody? Any kind of art?
Chance: Yeah. Let’s keep it a thousand. In my house, I got quite a few Hebru Brantleys, some pretty special Hebru Brantleys.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Yes. Yep.
Chance: I actually got a really, really cool gift just literally two days ago, my best friend and my manager Pat Corcoran, good dude, he got me for my birthday, I think it’s ’72 or ’73, but an original Michael Jackson drawing. I don’t know how many of you guys know Michael Jackson used to draw and used to paint, but he did and I got a piece that he made. I just put it in my house. So I collect Michael Jackson and Hebru Brantleys, basically is what I’m saying.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Well, I say that’s not bad. That’s not bad. Not at all. So, tell me about the source though. The source. You’re doing all this work, you’re doing all this good work and the blessings keep falling in your lap. What’s the source?
Chance: Well, I guess the easiest answer is God. And yeah, man. It’s crazy because I can feel myself infuriating people by saying that. Not in this present moment, I’m sure you guys aren’t burning at all, but I’m saying this will be recycled. This is a video on-demand piece, so there’s people in comment sections right now like, “Don’t tell me what to believe.” It’s God, yo. I’m sorry, yo. It’s working out great. No, but favor and mercy, straight up, all the way. What can I say. You know what it is.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: I’ve heard of such. I have heard of such. So you did talk about Kanye and we hear Kanye has some music coming. Out of curiously, would you happen to be working with him on anything?
Chance: I guess. I don’t know. I don’t know. Here’s the best way to answer the question. I don’t know what Kanye is going to do next and I don’t think anybody, even his engineers, his family, I don’t think anybody knows what’s coming next.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Okay. Overstood. So we talked about Chicago public high schools. I’d love to talk about the Orr basketball team and the documentary, Shot in the Dark.
Chance: Shot in the Dark, yeah.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: I know y’all saw it. It was everything. So this is coming from a Morgan Park high school grad, so I’m rooting for Orr. How did you come to that project? What made you sign on?
Chance: The project was brought to me. It was weird. It was by a few different people. One, Dan Poneman, he’s a producer on the project, a scout I’ve known for many years. He’s been working in high schools forever, and he basically showed me an amazing movie that was already fully produced and filmed and basically contracted out for the most part I think and asked me to work on it. Or asked me to attach my name to it and I was like, “Hell yeah.” This movie is great. That’s the thing about EP’ing. A lot of the time it means that you just had something fall in your lap, which goes back to my last answer. It’s just working out for me. I don’t know.
Chance: I had nothing to do with that project. I didn’t touch a camera. I didn’t tell anybody to stand in place. It just came to me, and I think it really spoke to me in how it really displayed... not Chicago culture because when people try and show Chicago culture and show you black people, they show you literally the worst stories and the worst telling of it. It’s even corny in how they pitch it to you. It’s not even cool.
Chance: And this movie was authentic West Side feels. Parties outside on the block and the dialect. There’s such a big difference that we recognize in Chicago between South Side and West Side culture, from my generation there’s a big difference. And it’s not like anybody is like, “But you’re either from out south or you’re from out west.” And this movie really gave that its own air to breathe. And I just thought it was perfect timing with the 90-plus-million-dollar cop academy they’re trying to build right around the corner from Orr, showing the lack of resources in the neighborhood, the lack of attention, the struggles that a lot of people face, and having that come out and having a story of triumph and perseverance come out around the same time, I thought it would speak to people, especially the people in Chicago with the most amount of power in these situations. Even if they end up building that shit, it will still be a small victory as a dope film, I guess.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Yeah. It was good. 100% good. So, does this mean that you’ll be doing more executive producing and more acting?
Chance: Oh, yes.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Oh yeah?
Chance: The EP’ing thing, I’m telling you. It’s so easy. Any of you guys could be an executive producer.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Okay. Okay.
Chance: It costs you nothing. You don’t need any ideas, you just–
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: You just show up.
Chance: ... put my name on that shit, yo. I think acting is so dope, yo. I think finding a script or having a script find you that it either speaks to you in such a direct way that you feel like you’re them or so much so the anthesis of your character that it’s something that you just always wanted to test. When you get that and you read the piece and you’re like, “Yo, I want to go out for this,” that’s an amazing feeling. But then on the other side of it, actually acting is super wack, yo. You sit in a trailer all day. All day you sit in a trailer. It’s extremely hot. There’s hot fruit in it. Hot fruit in there and you basically pretend to be somebody on camera for three different angles for four hours at a time.
Chance: You do a scene and you kill it. You do it the best way you can and then they say, “That was amazing. Do it again.” You do it a little bit worse, and they say, “Okay. That was terrible. You really need to do I this way.” You do it one more time, it’s terrible, they say, “All right. That’s a wrap.” Now we’re going to move the camera two inches to the left, and you’re going to do the exact same thing. You do that over and over again and they eventually make a movie. I really like the initial excitement I get off of attaching myself to a project but about four hours in I’m usually like, I quit. I quit. I’m not in this film anymore.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: So to be extra specific, keep it a thousand, if someone were to come to you to ask you about a reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air–
Chance: That was a great set up. What'’ so funny is that my mom was driving me around today, and she was like, “You know Jazzy Jeff, you need to play the Fresh Prince, you know you need to play the Fresh Prince.” No, I’m not playing the fucking Fresh Prince. I love the Fresh Prince. I love Will Smith. I have so much respect for him. I would never do that. But you know what? I would write on that joint. Me and one my best friend, Reeseynem, he from out west, we wrote four pieces for Saturday Night Live, and three of them actually made it to dress rehearsal. Two of them actually made it to air. One of them was the Steve Harvey Family Feud sketch, pretty genius I might say. And the other one was the Batman Thanksgiving sketch.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Oh, that was good.
Chance: Which, if you think about it, was A-fucking-one. But then, Kevin Hart had to try and come on two weeks later and reproduce my sketch, but with Batman as a black man at a routine police stop, who at the end gets arrested for actually having cocaine. To which I say, where’s the political statement? What are you saying?
Chance: I give one where I say okay, here’s Batman as a regular citizen. He’s a vigilante. We put all these dope lines in it. We want to use terms like excessive force and certain cool things. We had the sketch all put together, and it gets whittled down and watered down, but you still get a dope piece. You still get a community upset about how this criminal justice is being enacted on them disproportionately. And you get to understand that batman is focusing it on one specific group of people and it's not too in your face. People like it and they respond well to it.
Chance: My head gets gassed up because I’m like, “Okay, oh shit. I’m a writer. I’m a writer now.” And then you look on TV and a couple weeks later, it’s Batman but now Batman’s black and Batman is getting stopped by the police. Okay, I get it. That’s cool. I see where you’re taking this. He’s going to get, I guess, profiled in some way. He’s not going to get respected for being Batman because he’s black. But in the end after some questioning Batman has cocaine on him, and the whole stop was justified. But where do you see that in society? What about Philando?
Chance: There’s a lot of situations where police do stop black men, and it’s unjustified. And they do their justice pre-American justice, court of law, like we watch Law & Order, pre-justice, they enact their justice on us and there’s no... What do they call it? Probable cause. It just doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t seem right in every situation. But that shit, I don’t see it in this sketch. And maybe I’m just upset and I hope I get back on SNL because I’m still trying to do the host and performance thing. I don’t have a problem with K. Hart. He knows that, that’s my guy. But I had to get that shit off my chest, yo. And I forgot what the question was.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Okay. Well that was illuminating. That was very illuminating.
Chance: I forgot what the question was. I’m so sorry.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: No, it’s all good. You answered the question and then we talked about SNL.
Chance: Is there some powder at the bottom of my glass, yo?
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: No. No powder allowed.
Chance: Because I’m keeping it 2000 up here.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: So about that SNL, about SNL, when are you going to go back? How does that work exactly? They pitch you? You pitched them? It just all falls together?
Chance: Most of our stuff is me pitching, and a lot of that stuff doesn’t end up happening. But SNL was a dream for me, like I said, since I was 10 or 11 years old. My big cousin Chris had a tape recording of MC Hammer on SNL, and that was my first exposure to it, pre-Will Farrell, pre-2000s or whenever I started really watching the show. My understanding of it was pretty much a black lens. Because when they have a black person on they give them pretty good rein to make some dope stuff usually, I would say. And I was like this shit is amazing and I want to be a part of it because I think I’m funny. I am funny, also, by the way. I think I’m funny. I think I would kill it on this shit.
Chance: So from day one, I’ve seen every Kanye performance on there and I studied it. I’ve really watched actors from the beginning of them being on the show to really try and follow all the movies they make afterwards. And when I first got on the show, I did a show, not SNL, but I did a show in New York. I think for most late night shows, for any shows on TV, they send a scout to your show to see how many... I don’t know, if you pack the crowd. I don’t know what they’re testing for, but they send somebody to your show to check out if it’s popping. And they were like, yeah, you can be on the show. And so I did it. And I killed it. I did “Sunday Candy” and it went over really well.
Chance: There was a cool point also because I was in between projects. I had already released Surf. Acid Rap was old. Coloring Book didn’t have any singles and they were willing to work with me on doing “Sunday Candy,” even though it wasn’t a big single, it wasn’t technically by me, and they went with it. We did a different version too than what was on the album, they were really accepting of that. I ended up starting these awesome relationships with this amazing cast and really getting to see what their week looks like. When you’re the musical guest, you really only have to be there for two days out of the whole week. When you’re the host, you’re there every day, late at night, writing, rewriting, pitching, trying on wigs.
Chance: It’s a lot. Literally they’re dragging you around the studio and it’s non-stop for a full week. But a lot of those people that I started with the first time I did it back in I think 2014, maybe 2015, I kept great relationships with and saw every time I came back. It really is a cool thing to be a part of. I would say it was one of my goals.
Chance: One thing that presses me sometimes, I got pretty thick skin and niggas be trying to call me an industry plant and all types of shit. I don’t be sounding off, yo. I don’t be getting on Twitter talking crazy, but some niggas was trying to say that one reason why they didn’t trust my authenticity or they didn’t believe I could do it without the machine was because I was on Saturday Night Live. I don’t know. I was just thinking, do niggas really be trying to be on SNL, rappers? Really? Do people really be like... How many rappers do you know that were on SNL?
Chance: I think for me, it was a personal goal. A lot of people that are on SNL are there because they’re promoting something. They have an album that’s going to drop, they have a movie that’s going to come out, they have a TV show that’s starting, they’re about to go on tour. They have something that they’re trying to sell in tandem with their SNL appearance and a lot of times those people don’t even care. They’re not pitching sketches, they’re not coming to 30 Rock with five sketches written. They’re not spending all night at the studio and all night doing pre-tape. But that was me. I was really in it. I’ve loved the show since I was a kid.
Chance: So it was something since day one. I remember when I was going to record labels and taking meetings with them, they fuck you up, they hit you with the, “What do you want to do? Where do you see yourself?” Nigga, where do you see me? Tell me what I’m finna be doing. Tell me I’m going to be on SNL. But they hit you with that. They ask you what do you want to do and then you tell them as if they’re the grand wizard of Oz and they’re about to make all that shit happen for you. But I told all of them to their face, like, “I’m trying to be on SNL next year. I need that right now.”
Chance: And a lot of them, even though they do tell a lot of lies, they’ll tell you, “I don’t know if that’s going to happen. You got to build this and you got to do that and you got make sure that your album is about to come out.” But when I went to SNL, I didn’t have a tape that was about to drop. I didn’t have an album I was trying to sell. I didn’t have any way to capitalize on those appearances. That was for me.
Chance: And I got them done and I think that comes back to earlier, talking about fulfillment and success. I feel achieved. I feel happy. I feel like there’s things I can do better in terms of my relationship with my little cousins. I feel like I could maybe be a better big cousin. I feel like sometimes I could be a better father. I feel like I could stretch myself on other areas but in terms of my hunger, my hunger came from wanting to win a Grammy. They gave me three. They were like, don’t come back. I feel happy. I feel fulfilled, and that’s a good place to be.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Absolutely. My last question is for you, it’s about Twitter actually. I really appreciate something that you said last week.
Chance: What did I say?
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: You said, “Black women deserve better.”
Chance: Ain’t it the truth?
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: So I was like, yes. I want my following to get an alert, “You missed this from Chance, he said you deserve better.” I was like, hell yeah, that’s it. So, that is the truth. We all deserve better. But you are very prolific and you say a lot of things on Twitter that I would imagine many artists are counseled not to say and you do it anyway. What makes you so fearless in that regard?
Chance: My dad. You got to stand on something. You got to stand for something. You can’t just be posting, boasting. You see everybody talking about equal pay and this actor needs to take less so this actress can get more, this that and the third. But then Mo’Nique comes out and she says, “I know my worth.” Fuck what she says about her worth. She just says, “I know my worth,” and people are slamming her. People are like, “You didn’t do this. You didn’t do that.” Like, nigga, do you know how much they got paid? And let me try and formulate this stuff, because I don’t want to sound like I don’t know what I’m talking about. I see how deeply embedded racism is and sexism and vice versa and understand that I can’t really call myself free or feel like I am liberated, unless black women are liberated. I can’t say I know my worth or that I’m doing something for people if I can’t understand how many double standards there are and how many different dimensions they work.
Chance: And they all thrive off of white supremacy, toxic masculinity, patriarchy, there’s a lot of different things that all, in turn whether they immediately affect me or not, they won’t allow me to be liberated. So I can’t feel like I’m doing my part or speaking for people, if I’m not speaking for black women because they’re just getting the short end of the stick, straight up. Obviously I don’t just mean black American women, I mean black across the globe, darker women, darker people. I said that and I went on a rant about Mo’Nique and so many people whittled it down to that and made it about Mo’Nique. And I will stand and say it is about Mo’Nique. I’m with Mo’Nique.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: I would too.
Chance: I’m rocking with you. I’m with her. Whoever said that hashtag, I’m rocking with you. You know what I’m saying? Because, it’s hard. The way that all the media works now, you can get sucked up into it, and there are so many dominant opinions, and so many places where you can’t really say how you feel without somebody trying to correct you or tell you that you’re wrong and you’re not thinking about everybody, you’re just thinking about yourself or whatever. And I didn’t want to get sucked up into that. So I feel like I’m at fault because when the shit came out about Mo’Nique, that shit came out a long time ago. I’m going to keep saying Mo’Nique's name. Mo’Nique. Mo’Nique. Mo’Nique.
Chance: It came out a long time ago when she first came out and made a statement about her Netflix deal. And I don’t have any problem with Netflix, by the way. I’m still trying to get that Netflix money. I’m not finna boycott Netflix. Cancel my girlfriend’s subscription to Netflix, and stop watching Netflix to boycott it, I would just say across the board, we could understand that there’s some veracity to the statements being made about black women having lower wages across the board, across any medium, than not just men but white women as well. And so when I saw that, I was just like, I feel this type of way about it, but there’s so many memes and niggas going so crazy on Mo’Nique, I’m not finna just get up on my high horse right now.
Chance: And then it got its second media cycle, because that’s the way it works. Something happens and then they’re waiting for a follow-up. So her follow-up was her “Breakfast Club” interview, and she was so articulate and so empowered that my chest got big off that. She built me up for a second and I was like, “You know what, fuck that.” I was walking around my house swinging my arms, and I was like, “I’m finna tweet some shit.” I’m in the mirror shadow boxing, I’m finna go crazy. And I tweeted some stuff about her. And people got mad. And I said you know what, nigga, don’t say another thing, and I said another thing. I said, “You know what nigga, black women, you deserve better.” Then people went nuts. They went crazy on Twitter. Then I said, “You know what, all women deserve better.”
Chance: Women deserve better. Take the black out that joint. And I said no, you must have already seen it. I said no, and I’m going to stand on that joint. I don’t know why I’m getting so excited. I swear there’s some powder in my water. That’s the end of my answer.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Okay. So now I believe is the time where we go to the audience for a handful of questions. All right, sir?
Speaker 5: All right, so last year you get into a disagreement with the governor over funding for CPS, and I was curious if you would be willing to endorse any of the democratic candidates in the primary before it comes up for election?
Chance: That’s a great question. My answer to that is, they got to schedule a meeting with me. Tell me what you really about, yo. I said this before, and I think this across the board, I think a lot of our new leaders, post-2020 are going to be running independent. I know the independents never win, but I think that’s the way it’s headed, because there’s so many very specific issues that can’t get dealt with on a party across the board level.
Chance: There just has to be some superheroes. I think there’s going to be a whole bunch of superheroes, especially out of Chicago, and they’re going to come out of nowhere, and they’re going to be like, “This is what it is and this is what I’m running on. And you can ask me what my policy is on this, and I’ll tell you, but really this is what I’m going for.” And we’ll be able to say, “You know what, you’re right.” And so when somebody comes to me and says something to me and says this is what I’m about, and I can ask them well how do you feel about this, and they say this is what I’m about.
Chance: Well, probably not also. At the end of the day, I’m not trying to be a politician. I’m not trying to endorse anybody but if somebody comes with that solid fact, I’m rocking with them.
Speaker 6: So I was at MCD2.
Chance: Thank you.
Speaker 6: It was the best day of my whole life, and I was just wondering what’s coming of that? What’s happening?
Chance: All right so when you say MCD2, you mean the filming, or you mean the out in the park thing? There was an MCD. There was an MCW. And an MCW2. And then there’s a whole bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 6: The filming.
Chance: Can you describe the event you went to? I’m sorry, there’s a lot of acronyms and stuff.
Speaker 6: Sure. I had to put my phone in a case where I couldn’t access it. There was a lot of cameras, five stages. We sang together. It was a magical moment. I think we connected eyes.
Chance: Yeah. That happened. I remember you now.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Chance: So there’s MCW2. That was Magnificent Coloring World Two. Magnificent Coloring World One was, we did a pop-up art installation/listening party at the Goose Island Brewery. Okay, we have some people that made it to that. Small groups, but some people made it. And we bused a bunch of kids to this immersive space with all this art and interactive stuff and slides and shit like that and we played the album front to back and did it for three sessions.
Chance: So MCW2 was an idea I had in New Zealand. When you talk about an idea and executing it really fast, I had an idea really fast, where I designed this stage layout. It was so dope. It was five stages, and if you can imagine them across from you in a semi-circle, so surrounding you and you’re on these rafters, bleachers that stretch from one long end of a studio... I don’t know if any of you guys have ever been in a studio warehouse where they film a movie. A huge studio warehouse. So all the way from one end to the other, there’s these bleachers and you get filed into a dark studio room, it’s foggy in there and you’re on these bleachers and across from you is a semi-circle of gigantic stages, five stages across from you.
Chance: Basically I created a theme for each stage. There was a main stage, which had lights and everything. A regular show, LEDs and shit behind me. And then the stage next to me is the choral stage and there’s a choir, but a 50-person choir. Then there’s another stage, which is the theatrical stage. And there’s these different backdrops that change. I’m giving away too much of it actually. But imagine five stages. Imagine a concert. Imagine filming it. Imagine mic-ing up 5,000 fans to sing along with you.
Chance: I made this thing and I asked my team to help me get it done and they got it done. Shout out to Colleen. That’s my number one over there. But got it done and we filmed it and then the plan was to sell it to Netflix. So I’m hoping that you understand when I was saying I would not boycott my Netflix account. But we made a movie, I don’t know what’s going to happen to it. I don’t know what’s going to happen to it.
Speaker 7: Okay. I was wondering, do you have any plans to write any more grant proposals and would you be asking for help to do it because it’s literally what I do for a living and I’d take a leave of absence to do it for you.
Chance: Yeah. So the answer is yes. And I can make sure that you get somebody’s information.
Speaker 7: That would be amazing.
Chance: Formally. But no more job interviews. That was one, she got the job.
Speaker 8: Is it me? Okay. Hello. Hi, so we know that a lot of your philanthropy is centric to Chicago, but I’m wondering in the future do you wish to branch out? When you talk about black women across the globe are at a disadvantage, do you one day hope to expand it internationally or do you want to keep it centric to Chicago? Both are valid.
Chance: You mean like Social Works specifically?
Speaker 8: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Chance: So yeah, Social Works right now is a Chicago-centric avenue to do philanthropy. Our mission statement says that we work in youth education and civic engagement, but if you look at our projects, we’ve broke the law, we’ve helped more people than that. I don’t know why I said I broke the law on camera, that’s so stupid. We didn’t break the law obviously. We just helped a bunch of people. Shit. But we do want to do more stuff. So China just recently opened back up, they had closed down, they stopped doing tax-exempt organizations for a second, they stopped doing non-profit work, so they just reopened that, so we’re trying to work with them. We’re going to Africa in April to try to get it busting over there.
Chance: And I definitely want to expand. There’s so much work to do. In terms of specifically speaking on women’s rights, I don’t know if that’s for me to do but I definitely want to lend my support and it'’ so hard to really speak on that part. But yeah, specifically Social Works, I definitely want to expand. I think we have to start another one. I think that’s how it works. I don’t know.
Speaker 9: Hi.
Chance: Hey.
Speaker 9: Okay, it’s not really a question. I’ve been trying to give you my “save the date” for my wedding for five months, would you mind if I gave it to you?
Chance: Sure. Let’s do it afterwards. I’ll come grab it.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: That was beautiful. Okay, let’s go to the back. What about the guy with the hat on. I see you.
Speaker 10: First of all, I just wanted to say that Acid Rap was the soundtrack to my summer, any summer when I was a kid.
Chance: Thanks, man.
Speaker 10: That’s the reason I started making beats, so thank you for that.
Chance: How old are you?
Speaker 10: I’m 20.
Chance: Okay. I’m not that much older than you. Just saying. When you were a kid I was also a kid at the same time.
Speaker 10: My question is though, what is the most significant creative insight you learned from working with Kanye West?
Chance: Ooh. Hmm. The immediate answer that I would give is one that I’ve given before, he showed me how to multi-task and how to use the studio as more than just a recording space. I’ve said before, when he was working on Life of Pablo, that was the first time I ever got to be around him. Not the first time I got to be around him, but the first time I got to be around him in music and not like at some type of event or some shit. So we were in our space and he really believed in me and would do a lot of cool rants to people about how I was the Steph Curry of rap and really gassed me up and hyped me up in front of company all the time.
Chance: That was one of the coolest things. I’d just hang out there. Spend hours and hours there. And he would fall asleep in the studio, and take his naps and I’d still be sitting up going through songs. And one thing that I got from being at the studio and just being able to be under his wing and walk around, I said this before, what Kanye does instead of renting out a room at a studio, he rents the whole studio. Usually professional studios are multiple floors, multiple rooms, there’s an outside area like a terrace or something, and he would fill up these rooms with people working on different projects. The reason why... I won’t say which studio but why I use my studio as an office is from watching him do the same thing.
Chance: I remember there’d be three rooms with people working on three different songs from the same album. But also in other room with just pictures and samples of different materials all over the walls in one room where he was working on one clothing line. Then a room that literally mirrored that in another room but just a different clothing line that he had thought of. And when you went to the back to the terrace there was all these people on laptops.
Chance: I don’t know what they were working on, all of them. But one lady back there was a producer on The Lego Movie, which I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it but it’s one of the best movies of all time. You’ve seen it before I guess, great film, and then she was having a conversation with a dude who was, get this, a magician. And they were having conversation on how to make Kanye West disappear at a show.
Chance: But I took that information, I took that straight to heart and to the mind. And now, I don’t know how many people you’ll meet that tell you they had a meeting with me but my meetings are at the studio. When I film stuff for the press or for an inspirational video or shit like that, I do it at my studio. All the Social Works meetings are at the studio. We keep everything happening in one space so the creative energy stays there and instead of getting mad at a song and walking out to the lobby to just smoke a cigarette, I could walk out and go brainstorm with somebody on something else I’m working on.
Speaker 11: Awesome. Thank you. Chance, one of the most powerful things I saw on the internet was when you received your Grammys at your home and your daughter was putting them online and then you just got really emotional. What were you thinking then when that was happening and why did you get so emotional?
Chance: Whew. I just got touched right now, yo. Well, first of all, I am a thug. I never cry. This was actually the first time I cried in years, really though. So first of all, going back to my last question, that was not at my home, that was at my studio. And I had been waiting on these Grammys for so long. And everybody else had got their Grammys from the Grammys. All my friends or anybody that I knew who won the Grammys got them mailed I would guess a month or two after. I posted my Grammys, I think in August or September online because that’s the day that I got them.
Chance: The hold-up was because I didn’t... I’m weird. I don’t be liking to sign stuff. I don’t know, I have a weird thing about somebody who’s like, “All right. Everything is in order. You just need to sign right here.” I’m like, “Wait, nigga.” So I held off on getting the Grammys for a long time for no reason. I read it and it was nothing. But I got the Grammys finally in the mail and my mom, who for a long time was my dedicated nanny. She quit her amazing job to come be my nanny full-time. And I really appreciate her for just doing that. But I called her up and I was like, “I got my Grammys. I want you to be here when I open them.” Because I hadn’t taken them out of the package yet.
Chance: So my mom had my daughter with her, and she came over to the studio. And I don’t know man. Like I said, when they give you the Grammy, they give you a placeholder. The presenter doesn’t know who they’re going to give it to. They read a name. That person has the moment of their life, especially if it’s the first time they’ve ever been there and you hold it and you think about everything that led up to that moment and how you’ll never be Grammy-less again.
Chance: And then you walk off the stage and you’re looking at it and somebody snatches it out of your hand because it’s not yours, there’s no name on it. So I lived like that for so long and I really think, like I said, it was such a big moment for me and such a thing I really purposely didn’t sign for so long and kept saying no to amounts of money that I knew I wouldn’t see for a long time, because I just thought it would be cool for somebody to say I got the Grammy without a label. I just thought it would be dope for somebody to say that.
Chance: And I got them, and I’m holding a Grammy that probably weighs around close to seven and 10 pounds, a pretty heavy thing in one hand. And my daughter who is about 30 pounds in the other hand. Yeah, her mom is tall. But feeling that moment of... My daughter doesn’t know what a Grammy is. She doesn’t give a fuck. Could care less. But she could feel that I was happy and she was hugging me and she was congratulating me. And I was thinking about all the nights that I slept in the studio that I could have been with my baby, and how much pressure I put on myself to get this done. To get this accomplished. And now months and months after I won it, fuck me winning it, but the voting process is done. They knew I was going to win before I knew. And to put it in real perspective, God knew I was going to win it before I did.
Chance: So, I had been had it. I had it since I was born, and I put so much time and so much effort into it to really just stand there as a scale for a moment and feel the weight of my daughter and how much more important that was, it broke me down for a second. I’m like, “Yo, cut off the camera, yo, because I’m about to start crying.” That’s the best way to encapsulate what was going on. I think it was meant for me to get three at one time. Because if I had one I’d probably be too thirsty for more. But I got in abundance, so that I can see it’s worth it. It’s dope. All of the things that happened to make that happen were awesome but I got them like that so I could see that there were multiple of them. There’s no more Kensli’s. You know what I’m saying? So, that’s it. This shit getting deep.
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: I got chills. So we’re going to take our last person.
Ebony Edwards C: Hello. My name is Ebony Edwards Carr and I’m a student at Harold Washington College and what’s considered a non-traditional student, which means that I’m over 25 years of age. I’m actually 42. And I decided to go back to school after dropping out 20 years ago because my son was murdered in 2014 and he had just turned 18. And I did that in his honor because the reason I dropped out 20 years ago was because I was expecting him.
Ebony Edwards C: I firmly believe that college is for everyone who aspires to it. And I believe that free college should be offered for everyone. I’ve been blessed to get this opportunity because of a grant with Chicago Housing Authority, and I know Chicago public schools has the Chicago Scholars Program for CPS students, meaning that if you have a B average, you can get a free college education through the city colleges of Chicago.
Ebony Edwards C: I read that you were once a student at Harold Washington College as well, so my question is what would you say to not only your younger self but also the aspiring college students at Chicago public schools? And what would you say to the city colleges NCPS, to make the city colleges of Chicago not necessarily a second choice but a first choice because it is an opportunity to have a free college education?
Chance: Well, for one I would tell myself, I think I could tell myself you could do it all. I went to Harold Washington for exactly one day. I know I’m on the website listed as an alumni. I thought alumni meant that you graduated. Apparently it doesn’t, it just meant that you signed up. But, I would tell myself straight up, I would say you could do it all because there’s a lot of tools that I don’t have. I’m lucky enough, I went to a really good grade school, went to Mark T. Skinner school. I went to a really good high school, Jones College Prep. I gave up though, because my heart wasn’t really in it, and parts of me felt like I wasn’t good enough to be in college, and other parts of me felt like I was too good to be at city college.
Chance: I think the combination of the fear that I wasn’t living to my full potential and also that I could be graded on my intelligence and not necessarily live up to whatever standards I thought that I was at or stay on top of my work like I believe I could, I quit. I didn’t make it through a full day. That was a lie earlier. I went to two of three classes. It wasn’t set up right for me. I registered too late and I didn’t get to have any gen-eds. I had a class called reading, but it wasn’t an English class, it was just they had books in there. I had a lot of classes that were not conducive to what I was trying to do so I quit.
Chance: But, if I could go back and fix something it would be my understanding of the music business. I learned a lot, and I ain’t no dummy but I don’t know it all. I didn’t learn it in a way where it was beneficial to actual education. I learned it through people’s behavior, through word of mouth, through picking up on small things. And that’s how us as a people learn a lot of things, because a lot of shit isn’t accessible for us. But that’s not the best way to learn. So one thing is I wish I did understand business. I wish I did have better investments at this age. I made a lot of money. I don’t have no chains. I haven’t spent my money in dumb ways, but I don’t have it necessarily working for me how I probably would if I went to school.
Chance: I am learning a lot more about international schooling and international healthcare, becoming more aware of our counterparts in the world and how shit works for different people and learning about universal pre-school is a big thing that I’m becoming a proponent of. I think there are a lot of things that are owed to us as citizens in a nation like this, especially people that look like us. And we don’t have it. There’s money for it. We all pay taxes.
Chance: So yeah, I would say to the city of Chicago, for one, the first thing that I thought of when you started talking is the non-profit thing is hard, and it’s real. I really had to apply for that shit, and all the work that goes into it and anybody could do it actually. Anybody can start a non-profit if they want to, but it is still hard. Raise your hand if you have a non-profit. We have at least three people. Can we clap the hands. It’s grueling work, and it’s hard waiting on approval from the government on whether or not you can help people.
Chance: But we did it in a certain way, and I remember one of the things that we had to figure out was what kind of tax-exempt organization we were going to be and if we would be able to be something like a foundation where they give out scholarships. So that’s something that actually as soon as you started talking, we’re going to look into that when we leave here and figure out how we can... Because Social Works, I would love to be in a position to do that and to help people. I think higher education is the answer.
Chance: As you guys can tell also throughout this thing, I answer questions by rambling. And it’s not that I don’t know the answer is more that there’s multiple answers to all these questions, and I’m trying to form them. Can I get one more question before we get out of here. Just uno mas, this has been a healing experience for me as y’all could tell.
Christina Cox: Hello. Hello, Adrienne. Hello, Chance. My name is Christina Cox. I’m a reporter with the Tribe–
Adrienne Samuels Gibbs: Hey.
Christina Cox: ... which is a black all media company. We’re working to reshape the black narrative and you guys touched briefly on it, but those last weeks, couple of months ago with closing the schools and the cop academy they’re voting to secure the land. What are your thoughts? Tell me how that makes you feel emotionally and how will you continue to use your voice to combat these issues in Chicago?
Chance: Well, I feel cheated. I feel angry. I feel vengeful. I feel like there are people that aren’t nameless. You grow up feeling like you’re fighting against the man or you’re fighting against this faceless entity of people that are out to get you, but these people have names, you know what I’m saying? Rahm is on that. That’s just what it is, and there’s no way to hide it. This is, I think, the third group closing of schools since 2013, and we did work with some of the schools, I think Harlow was one of the schools, Team Englewood and TA. I’m trying to remember the name of... The truth is all these schools have a few similarities between them, right?
Chance: And it’s not like we have to dance around it. I’m tired of trying to just rock with democrats because I’m supposed to be a democrat. I’m tired of trying to support people just because they rock with the same people as me. There’s nobody coming out and saying I see the inequality, I see the inequities, I see the unfairness. I see the violations of our city. I see scathing department of justice reviews on our police department, the same one that murdered Fred Hampton, I’m saying I’m seeing that this is a fucked up system and this is me inserting myself into it to change it all.
Chance: I know it’s not me and I’ll say it. I’m cool with that. I don’t want to be the one. But, I want to stand behind whoever it is, and whoever has that voice. And it doesn’t necessarily start on that level. It starts on an aldermanic level, it starts on the all-ages shit, it starts on the my neighborhood, my war, my block type shit. It starts with block club presidents. It starts with starting a block club, you know what I’m saying? But all those levels are accessible. I’m here. I’m posted. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to live in Chicago until the day I die, and I’m going to leave every once in a while. I’m going to travel. I’m going to do some tours, so I can get that bag, and then I’m going to lobby for y’all. If y’all need the support I’m going to make it happen. And I think this was a good-ass interview. I think I did it. I think we’re done.
Elia Einhorn: This has been In Sight Out, a series of podcasts from Pitchfork and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago that explores new perspectives on music, art, and culture. In Sight Out is presented by MailChimp: build your brand, sell more stuff. This podcast was produced by yours truly, Elia Einhorn, and Mark Yoshizumi, and engineered by Mark Yoshizumi with Rich Norwood. In Sight Out’s executive producer is Seth Dotson. Until next time.
