Chance the Rapper Talks Advice From Dave Chappelle, New Album 'Star Line,' and More | Lollapalooza - video Dailymotion

Rolling Stone

In a new interview with Rolling Stone at Lollapalooza, #chancetherapper talks to Rolling Stone about advice he's received from Dave Chappelle, the deeper meaning behind his new single "Tree," and the making of his first new album in six years.  "One of my favorite quotes that I got: Dave Chappelle told me that albums, and he was talking in the context of specials for a comedian, specials, comedy albums, rap albums, they’re like yearbook photos. It’s not the full story of who you are, it’s who you are in that moment," Chance says. "And it’s important to take that snapshot and put it out there so you have documentation of what that moment felt like."

Transcript

00:00This is Rolling Stone. We're here at Lollapalooza with...

00:03Chance the Rapper!

00:10How are we doing? It's great to see you.

00:11Pretty good. Good to see you.

00:12You just caught Doji's set, The Last of It.

00:15Insane.

00:15Tell me a little bit about how that was.

00:17It was incredible. She has a really good eye for set pieces and for choreo,

00:24because I think she comes from a musical theater and dance background.

00:27The really cool thing that I've seen, I've seen people do this move before.

00:30They left stage, you know, and they brought the IMAG cameras with them.

00:33So we're still watching what she did when she left stage.

00:35Yeah, I love that, yeah.

00:36And she takes a car off the lot to the riverfront right next to Lollapalooza, where the lake is.

00:42And I'm talking about riverfront, to the lakefront.

00:44And fucking started twerking on a car that was painted and said,

00:49Doji Tour. So now I know Doji's going to go on tour. It was low-key incredible.

00:52Like a week ago, Houston and some of my friends that do Lollap asked me to come

00:59and do a surprise set, a 15-minute set, which I've never done.

01:02I've played this festival a lot of times.

01:05Chicagoans know that. Maybe everybody doesn't know that.

01:06But I've headlined quite a few times.

01:09And then I've also, I have a knack for coming out during people's set, people call me.

01:12And so it's like a tradition.

01:14And they were like, we should formalize it.

01:16You got the album coming out.

01:17You should come out and do like a, you know, instead of coming out and doing one song,

01:20you can come out and do like however many you want, 15 minutes.

01:22But it was a lot, a lot of people.

01:23I'm sure.

01:24It was insane.

01:24Yeah.

01:25You're a Chicago legend.

01:26Yeah.

01:26Well, thank you.

01:27Yeah, you're welcome.

01:29Speaking of the new album you just announced,

01:32tell me a little bit about how that came together.

01:33Maybe the timeline in which it was written and produced.

01:36It's hard to say exactly when I started on it,

01:38because it was a project that takes a lot of pieces from things that I wanted to do

01:45earlier in my career in terms of like collaborating with visual artists in terms of creating a visual

01:54language in terms of like film or just how my fans get to hear and see my words.

02:03All of those things I started incorporating around 2021 was when I got into it.

02:07And over time, some of the things that I learned and things I experienced like going to Ghana,

02:14you know, reconnecting with a lot of my family, you know, going through relationship changes,

02:20getting divorced, you know, it's a lot of things that happened in between my last project and this

02:29day because it was six years ago throughout this whole process.

02:32I've also learned ways of being more in touch with my fans. So I've just invited secretly like

02:39fans and like different cities to come out and listen to the works as it went on.

02:43And I think all that time being with them really informed the project also.

02:48You spoke a little bit about going through a lot of personal transformation very publicly.

02:54I'm curious, I mean, you've gone from being a young student to a father,

02:58to being someone very open about your faith.

03:00How has sort of the public perception of those changes affected the way that you write music?

03:05That's a good question. As an artist, you're you're creating for others in a sense, like

03:12we can create for ourselves and sing in the shower.

03:15But part of what makes you an artist is publishing your work across any medium is like putting your stuff

03:20out there. I kind of came from the open mic world where it was like since high school,

03:25every week I was trying to come up with new pieces to interact with the same community of

03:30fans that I built as a fucking 15 year old. I think as I've grown, I have learned more about like

03:37how much you should let in and how much you should let the amount of weight or

03:44credence that you give to outsiders opinions. But I think it will always be a part of the works because

03:50like I do care. I do like just as much as like, you know, somebody's having a negative opinion can

03:56affect you. It's also like the love that I've received or like the things that people say sometimes

04:01to me that's really specifically dealing with like something that I said and published is like it's

04:07unmatched feeling, you know, so you got to care what people say.

04:10Yeah. And it has been six years since your last formal body of work has come out. How about your

04:16personal perception of yourself? What has changed in that time for you?

04:20That's a good question, too. I guess a lot has been six years. I think my perception of myself changes

04:26a lot every hour. You know what I mean? And I think that's OK, because I think like one of my favorite quotes

04:33I got, Dave Chappelle told me that, you know, albums and he was talking about in the context of specials

04:40for comedians, specials, comedy albums, rap albums. They're like yearbook photos. And so it's like

04:47it's not the full story of who you are. It's just who you are in that moment. And it's important to

04:52take that snapshot and put it out there so that you have documentation of what that moment felt like.

04:57And I think, you know, throughout this process, it's been a very cyclical thing of like, you know,

05:04how I felt. But today, I feel very good. I'm glad to hear it. How much were you thinking

05:11about legacy while creating this specific album, Starlin? I think to a certain extent, it creeps in,

05:19just like with every project. I think no artist sits down and is like, I hope, you know, I want to

05:25I just want to write something that's OK. I don't want it to be too good. For sure.

05:27You know, so every time there's this pressure of like, does this fully cover the topic that I'm

05:33trying to talk about? You know, does it cover all the things that I like in music? Does it cover all

05:37the things other people want in music? Right. That's important to a certain extent. But like,

05:42there's a lot of self discovery in the album, a lot of

05:48critique and commentary on where we are socially and and a lot of history in it. So just a couple ranks

05:56higher than like my legacy. I think I was thinking a lot about how this can affect or inform, you know,

06:04or empower people. That's really cool. So you just released The Single Tree featuring Lil Wayne.

06:11Tell me a little bit about that collaboration. It's a song that samples NDRE video.

06:17NDRE is like, like a large part of my musical DNA. And, and probably a lot of artists musical DNA,

06:25just like a lot of the samples on the album. It comes from, like, the things that I grew up

06:31that I got from my mother. My mom was very, very musical, very like smart, like, just like,

06:37cool person. So a lot of my like, introduction to hip hop or R&B came from just riding with my

06:44moms. And so that song was always something that I wanted to flip and figure out a way to like,

06:48do the right way. Yeah. Um, and when it came to me, uh, in this project, I knew that I wanted to

06:56dedicate it to my mother. And within the context of the album, it's really like

07:03a really, really important song, because obviously on surface is a weed song, but it's really

07:09about the inequities in the cannabis industry and kind of using that as a metaphor overall for the

07:15inequities and agriculture at large. And black folks don't really own any like means of, of,

07:29of like production and a lot of industries, but black farmers have always had it the toughest in

07:34America. That's immediately linked to the fact that we used to be slaves and then we were share

07:40croppers. And by the time that we got to be legally farm owners, uh, they had already put a lot of

07:48systems in place to make it harder for us to get government loans, make it harder for us to,

07:53to get places in market. And my family is from North Carolina. So we know a lot about agriculture

07:58and used to be sharecroppers. And so, uh, that song was dedicated to pilot mountain where my family is

08:05from, it was dedicated to my mother. We and hip hop are very intertwined, right? Yeah. But the way that

08:10we associate, especially in movies, rappers and weed is with a negative connotation. And, and it's kind of

08:19like the same way that, you know, it's in jail while legal cannabis is a billion dollar industry.

08:28The best thing I can say is, is it's cool when you do it, it's a problem when I do it. Right.

08:32You know what I'm saying? Right. And I think that's the song for me was like a very expressive,

08:39very like uncensored, but still fun and still inclusive, like just record about my love for,

08:47for the dope. Yeah. And even sound wise, like it carries a sense of defiance, but it's also quite

08:52bouncy. Um, I'm wondering if the sound that we're hearing in this first single is something that we

08:57can expect throughout the album or is it, are we going to be surprised with the track list?

09:02I think you guys will be surprised in terms of like production is very wide range. And like all

09:07my projects, like, I don't think there's any project where there's a lot of beats that you could say

09:11sound the same stylistically. I think I would say lyrically, there's a lot of the motifs from the

09:17album are in that song. So like, uh, fire or purging through fire, reclamation, um, resistance,

09:26uh, you know, all of that also being kind of coded and not being super in your face and still being

09:32fun. I think it's a good preview of, I think lyrically or content wise, what the album feels

09:37like. Last question I want to ask you is obviously we're in Chicago, your hometown,

09:42curious how Chicago itself specifically shaped the writing of this album. That's a good question. Uh,

09:50Chicago is like, I think just an intrinsic thing. Like, and I think when I made acid rap,

09:59I was very, very focused on including, uh, and promoting or platform at different parts of Chicago

10:08music historically. So there's, you know, uh, gospel, a little bit of blues and jazz samples.

10:15There's the Kanye intro sample. There's the, you know, the common samples. There's so many different

10:21parts of it, little juke sections and shit. Like I was very intent on like showing the parts of Chicago

10:27that I didn't see represented now. And I think this one has like, you know, there's some juke drums

10:33on speed of light towards the end, but it's not as like, you know, intentionally. And then there's

10:40obviously a bunch of Chicago artists on it too. But I would say it's a little bit more,

10:44I think a little wider. There's a lot of other regional sounds that, you know, through my travels,

10:49I spent a lot of time in New Orleans. I spent a lot of time in DC, spent a lot of time in New York,

10:53a lot of time in Ghana and Jamaica. Um, I don't know if I already said Atlanta,

10:57but I love Atlanta and Houston. And so I think the sounds production wise, if they're not,

11:05you know, super experimental, they're kind of like, uh, based in some sort of like

11:14black music that was influential to me that through childhood or through my travels,

11:18this is actually the hour right here. You saw it here. Yeah. Folks. This is actually the first

11:23NFC CD. So it's, it's got this technology in it where if you're, uh, if you got the CD on you

11:31and you don't got a CD player, you could just tap your phone to the CD and it'll Bluetooth it.

11:38So try and like, you know what I'm saying? Scan it until you find the NFC. Let's see. There you go.

11:43And then you tap that, tap that up. I'll try not to memorize your password. It's okay. And then,

11:51yeah, and just scroll down. It's only right up. It's eight bucks. You feel me? And then now,

11:57once this comes to you, you can just leave it in the car and whenever you want to play,

11:59you can just tap. Love that. Very cool. Very cool. Thank you, man.

Chance the Rapper Talks Advice From Dave Chappelle, New Album 'Star Line,' and More | Lollapalooza

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