Yesterday, it was reported by some — including us, based on other respectable sites reporting it — Chance the Rapper would appear at a race forum for ESPN in Chicago. Turns out, it wasn’t true. He did share some opinions on race relations in America, though.
@espn and it is the responsibility of athletes and celebrities to say all that out loud whether at a forum, on twitter or at work.
— Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) August 23, 2016
I say all this because Chance has never been shy about his opinions on race, especially when it comes to the issues in his hometown of Chicago.
His new GQ profile highlights that even further.
He talked about everything from President Obama and The First Family listening to Coloring Book to living out in Los Angeles. But the core of the story came in how great life once was he moved back to Chicago and rediscovered God — and his child.
“I think it was the baby that, you know, brought my faith back,” Chance said.
Once he came back to Chicago, he rented out studios and had God at the forefront of his Coloring Book sessions, and The Life of Pablo sessions, too.
Check out the full story on GQ, and read snippets from the story below.
On family and a prophecy/blessing his late grandma gave him around the Acid Rap days:
“She looked me in the eyes and she said, ‘I don’t like what’s going on.’ She said, ‘I can see it in your eyes. I don’t like this.’ And she says, ‘We’re gonna pray.’ And she prayed for me all the time. Like, very positive things. But this time, she said, ‘Lord, I pray that all things that are not like You, You take away from Chance. Make sure that he fails at everything that is not like You. Take it away. Turn it into dust.’”
Is she praying that I fail at everything I’m trying to do?”
Living in Los Angeles and conveniently having Frank Ocean to hang out with:
“I was on a date one time at the crib, and we’re sitting in the front room, maybe rolling up some weed or something.” Frank Ocean was downstairs, somewhere. “And then Frank just comes up and starts playing the piano and lightly singing in the background of our date. Obviously, that scored me a lot of points with this female.”
What working with Kanye West is like, kind of:
“I would say almost 60 percent of working with Kanye—let’s say 53 percent of working with Kanye—is speeches.”
On President Obama and his family listening to his album:
“Oh yeah. They’re bumping Coloring Book hard up there. If you go up there, you’ll probably hearColoring Book. This is not a joke at all. … Malia listens to Coloring Book. And I send them stuff sometimes. I haven’t seen Malia since I was a kid. I think they were both in school the day that I went up there recently, but Barack was talking about it. Or, uh, President Obama was talking about it.”
