Chance The Rapper’s new album The Big Day is out now and he’s been on an unconventional promotional run since its release, taking the album to Good Morning America for a Central Park concert and popping up in Dayton, Ohio for Dave Chappelle’s Gem City Shine benefit concert honoring recent mass shooting victims. Still, every artist eventually must make their stop at New York City radio’s The Breakfast Club to get grilled by Charlamagne and the gang on the hot topics of the day.
In Chance’s insightful interview, he addressed some of the backlash against his album online, positing that its uplifting messages may have made some listeners uncomfortable, and clarified his earlier Twitter comment about feeling like some people wanted him to kill himself. Later on in the interview, he also offered his thoughts on Jay-Z’s controversial NFL partnership, which has been a hot button issue in the hip-hop community since it was announced.
“I think there’s certain things that I would like to see get changed,” he said. “Shout out to Jay-Z, who’s helped me a lot since day one, but there’s things that I gotta do personally that I think will effect change and empower other people to effect change, that would be outside of the Super Bowl… I have my own means of — Damn, I hate the word “social justice” — let’s just say the police are killing n—-s crazy — like, violently, in extreme violent ways — and they know they have body cams.” He breaks down the system’s inadequacies in how it classifies citizens in opposition to their representatives, then talks about how police are often intimidated into silence, and how those processes need to be changed.
“With that being said, I’m not rapping at the Super Bowl,” he jokes, noting that he is the NBA’s official ambassador for its upcoming All-Star Game in Chicago. “I look up to Jay and I call Jay when I need help.”
