Chance the Rapper is a man with multiple balls in the air. Chance was beaming when he recently sat down with Peter Rosenberg at the Chicago studio where he recorded his 2016 album, "Coloring Book," for the season finale of "Open Late". Chance and Rosenberg discussed two new music projects he has in the works. The first project is a 7-track album produced by one of Chance's favourite artists, Rap legend Kanye West. Chance stated he will be working on the album with Kanye this month. "I'm in dry erase board mode," Chance said of his current creative process.
"Ye's kind of got me in a mode of understanding just your ability to multi-task and work on different things. He's always been on that..."
The other project is a collaboration with "Solo: A Star Wars Story" star and fellow musician Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) who Chance credits as his mentor and one of the first rappers who invited him to go on the road with them. Chance reports that he and Childish already have six songs in the bank that: "... are all fire, but I think the album’s going to be more than 14 songs. I think it’s going to be a full thing." Upon hearing this Rosenberg seeded the idea of a potential stadium tour in support of the album which seemed to both flatter and humble Chance.
What's Next?
Whether these next Chance The Rapper albums will be independent or on a major label is still up in the air. Chance shows great concern for how his art will be delivered, who he will reach, what "perspective" he will portray, how it will be viewed, and the potential a label has to direct or alter that. Noting his prior success without a label Chance smirks: "I've got the best mixtape batting average" and boasts: "in all honesty, I already juked the labels...
I'm not gonna go crazy on any labels right now." Chance seeks to substantiate his point by posing the question: "how do you function when everybody is tied up to one of the three majors?"
Still, Chance is ready to rock the airwaves and bemoaned: "I wish I had music out right now, like, I've got hella music. I've got so many songs." Chance proposes that: "I want to make music and I want as many people to hear it as possible." Right now Chance tells us: "I'm 30 percent on everything that I'm working on, at least 30 percent." Luckily Chance says of his collaborators Kanye West and Donald Glover "those are dudes that, like -- I like, wanna do everything. I wanna work on as many things as possible."
