Chance the Rapper’s Art and Activism

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Wnyc, David, Arts, Yorker, Society & Culture, Storytelling, Books, New, Remnick, Politics

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2020

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My generation was taught that the civil-rights movement ended in the sixties, and that the Civil Rights Act put things as they should be,” Chance the Rapper tells David Remnick. “That belief was reinforced with the election of Barack Obama”—who loomed especially large to a boy from the South Side of Chicago. One of the biggest stars in hip-hop, Chance is also one of the most politically committed, and his art has always been closely tied to his commitment to lift up his community. Quite early in his career, he founded a nonprofit, SocialWorks, that invests in education in Chicago, and he has advocated for progressive candidates in city politics. But as politically aware as he is, Chance says that the protests following the death of George Floyd have given him a new consciousness of the struggle for racial justice. “This movement has shown us that we are very far from an equitable or an equal society. And that we will be the generation that fixes it.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:08.2	Chance the rapper was 20 years old when he started getting attention for his mixtapes and at 27, he's one of the biggest stars in music.
0:16.5	He's collaborated with Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar, and he's hosted Saturday Night Live twice.
0:22.3	Hey, this ain't no intro, it's the Andre.
0:26.0	Hit that intro with Kanye and sound like Andre, trying to turn my baby, mama.
0:31.6	But Chance is also one of the most political musicians working today, and that's more or less in his blood.
0:36.9	He's the son of a political organizer
0:38.7	from the south side of Chicago who later worked in the Obama administration. Chance has helped
0:44.1	to finance a progressive candidate for mayor, and he runs a non-profit focusing on education.
0:50.0	Recently, Chance was on the streets of Chicago among those protesting for racial justice.
0:55.3	I think a lot of people look at me as a person that has money, that has influence,
0:59.1	that has power, that doesn't deal with a lot of issues.
1:02.0	But I still have PTSD from my run is where officers.
1:05.0	I've had knees in my back.
1:06.6	Wow.
1:07.3	Yeah.
1:08.2	You know what I'm saying? I talked with Chance the rapper earlier this month.
1:12.1	Tell me a little bit about what your life has been like for the last couple of weeks.
1:16.0	These past several weeks, actually.
1:19.8	I would say the past couple of weeks have been, what's a good word for it?
1:33.1	Jarring has been like uh i think everybody's kind of probably been struggling with the information that they're gaining and finding out how we've all been either
1:39.2	affected by or complicit in the white male patriarchy that this nation is built on and our society is built on.
	...

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