Future Black History Month: Chance the Rapper's Invincible Independence
This year, we’re celebrating an extended Black History Month by highlighting a variety of rising forces who are creating history before our very eyes. Today we're repping for Chance the Rapper, the Chicago artist who's somehow only 22 years old despite having made a cultural and social imprint that's never going away. Born Chancelor Bennett, the guy has never released a single song for profit. 2012's remarkable 10 Day and 2013's landmark Acid Rap were both free mixtapes; 2015's Surf album, billed under the Chance-featuring band Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment, was a surprise release available for $0.00 on iTunes.
Chance has made a point of doing things his way; he's been courted by every label imaginable and refused to sign. "Label deals suck, that’s just the truth of it," he told the Wall Street Journal in 2015. He went on:
"That feeling of getting something free—it’s a complete turnaround from what the industry feeds us. Why charge a dollar for [a song] when that’s not doing anything but making people undervalue music? None of my songs are worth 99 cents. They’re worth a lot more."
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