Chance The Rapper says that it’s important for public figures to get the facts on police brutality.
“I think, as a Black man, I have a responsibility to have knowledge and have an opinion,” Chance says in an interview with Complex posted today (May 5). “I don’t necessarily think, as a person of influence, that it’s always my job to influence people regarding my opinion. I try to explain to people a lot: There is no singular Black experience or Black opinion or Black thought. We are united in a lot of experiences. Because I’m a Black man, the life that I live is a part of the Black experience, but it’s not something I can just pass off as the ultimate.”
The Chicago artist says that his platform is not always the proper place to share information related to crime and justice.
“I think it’s important for me to be qualified to have an opinion on it, and it be informed, but I don’t necessarily think using my platform is always the right thing,” Chance says. “It’s more important for [people] to have information. I don’t necessarily always have information. If they’re getting it directly from an uninformed source, or they’re getting it from a source that they don’t really have a filter on in terms of how they take it in, it kind of becomes more propaganda.”
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Chance The Rapper says that the passing of his mentor Michael Hawkins helped inspire an open mic series in Chicago.
“Musically, from before he passed, he’s just been a huge influence, and teacher, and molder of me [from] when I was 14-years-old,” Chance says. “I would think the open mic thing would be musically how he affected me, him building that space for me. And, also, in his passing, taught me that’s my job. I’m not a mentee anymore. I’m not a young artist in the same place. I’m not hungry for the same things. [The] gratification of being donned a great rapper isn’t as important as giving people the resources they need in order to make the statements they want to make.”
The SaveMoney emcee says his recent release “Sunday Candy” was inspired by his grandmother.
“My grandmother loved it,” Chance says. “My grandmother is a huge part of my life. She’s just a great woman, a woman of the church. [She’s] a huge influence in my life in terms of my faith and my ideas of love, and women, and family roles: matriarchal role, patriarchal role. She’s very involved in my music and very attentive to what I do. She always wanted a song, so me and Nico, he’s Donnie Trumpet, we both are very close to her. We were making the project, we made the record for her, and we decided we wanted it to be the only single. We did it like that.”
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Chance The Rapper is featured on Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment’s upcoming album, Surf.
For additional Chance The Rapper coverage, watch the following DX Daily:
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