Chance the Rapper is using his artistic platform for political influence. This year, Chance has donated $1 million of his own money to Chicago Public Schools’ funding crisis (here’s a deep dive into how we ended up here) and established the New Chance Arts & Literature Funds to better support arts programs. Every time Chance does an interview, it seems like he’s using the moment to share his agenda on improving his hometown of Chicago.
In his Ebony cover story, Chance spoke with Adrienne Samuels Gibbs for their June 2017 issue about whether he'd consider running for president one day. Obviously, this would be huge for the Chi. Just a reminder: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, fellow Chicagoan Kanye West, and even Mark Cuban have thrown their names in the hat for the 2020 presidency. Chance has quite the competition ahead of him.
Even so, Chance fans, who believe this is his year, have already started a petition encouraging Chance to challenge Rahm Emanuel and run for the mayor’s office in 2019. We imagined what Chance the Mayor would be like, and his political endeavors all sound plausible.
But, according to Chance, he wants no part of American politics and the possibility of doing favors to get what you want.
“I would never run for any office or government position,” he says plainly after cracking a smile. “I’m not into it. 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. I think when you’re in my position as an artist, I can say what I want and talk about the issues that matter.”
So there you have it. Chance the President isn’t in the cards for him. Still, I think his influence is strong enough that he’ll accomplish a lot without the POTUS title.
You can read the full story on Medium here.
