Many are learning about the 29-year-old Chicago-born lyricist Chance the Rapper through his position on the NBC singing competition show The Voice, on which Chance is a coach.
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But many others have been following the rapper’s career since his breakthrough mixtape, 10 Day, in 2012. To date, Chance is a multi-time Grammy Award-winning and someone many look to for guidance and wisdom. He’s philanthropic—donating big sums of money to charity and education. And along with another Chicago rapper, Vic Mensa, Chance recently organized a music and arts festival in Ghana.
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He’s an independent artist, an influential guy, and very recognizable in this trademark “3” hat. But what does the accomplished rapper have to say about the world at large outside of his music? About life, love, and his craft?
Here are the 20 best Chance the Rapper quotes.
1. “Something I try to instill in others is to just be a good person. It’s a decision you make a million times a day. But if you just keep trying, good stuff comes to you in an ordained way.”
2. “There are cases where you can say a lot more in a hook than you can by making things more complex in a verse.”
3. “I don’t see myself ever being in a position where I need to sign to a label.”
4. “I’m light-skinned, and I used to lean on that because that’s something a lot of black people pride themselves on, and it’s weird.”
5. “I used to always rock a cap when I was in high school and get them taken away. It was an excessive amount. Like, so often that, at the end of each school year, there would be a box of all the confiscated caps. After they gave back a few caps to other kids, they would just give me the box because the rest were all my hats.”
6. “I made the decision that I was going to make rap music in, like, fourth grade, so it’s been something I was saying for a long time.”
7. “I remember sitting on the back of the bus on the first day of the Social Experiment tour with my face in my hands. I emptied out my bank account, and before I did that tour, that was the number one thing I said I’d never do. I’ll never empty out my savings.”
8. “There is a multitude of experiences that make up the Black experience.”
9. “I hate that when you introduce yourself, and you’re a rapper, sometimes you gotta say, ‘I’m a musician.’ Or, ‘I’m an artist.’ ‘I’m a recording artist.’ ‘I’m a vocalist.'”
10. “I make my money off of touring and merchandise. And I’m lucky I have really loyal fans that understand how it works and support.”
11. “I still think that God means everything to everyone, whether they understand it or not or can see for themselves.”
12. “Being in the space that I am as a writer, and just as a black dude in America, there’s this push to be cool or be what you’re expected to be. There’s a need for a song that puts that in perspective. I think that’s an important thing for young children to hear growing up.”
13. “I think that’s always the goal of art, is to make people ask themselves questions.”
14. “I think politics is a reason why a lot of stuff doesn’t get done. There’s a lot of favors, and a lot of people are held back by their intentions of being re-elected or the things that they owe their party or constituents.”
15. “God and my dad gave me the gift of gab. I know how to finagle.”
16. “That’s what I’ve always wanted to do—work with my favorite writers and make something from scratch with them that we can feel like didn’t exist before we came in the room.”
17. “I don’t make Christian rap, but I am a Christian rapper.”
18. “I used to be the class clown. I was the funny kid. That’s why it was so hard for people to understand that I rap because, for a long time, they didn’t take me seriously for who I was. By, like, eighth grade, I was really rapping.”
19. “It wasn’t until I left that I realized it’s not weird to grow up in certain cities and, by the age of 27 or 28, for all of your friends to still be alive. I can think of a lot of kids that I knew in Chicago who were supposed to grow up but didn’t.”
20. “‘Chance the Rapper’ is many things. I’m constantly evolving.”
Photo courtesy Shorefire Media
