Photo by Philip Cosores
Chance the Rapper recently sat down for an interview with DJ Semtex for BBC Radio 1XTRA and revealed that he is planning to release an album in the near future. Asked about his plans following May’s Coloring Book mixtape, Chance responded, “I’ll probably put out an album. That’s what I’ve been thinking about, just between us.”
Earlier in the interview he had mentioned that “his favorite thing in the world is performing music live,” and he explained that an album would give him a new way to do that: “My mixtapes have been confused for albums for a long time so it has to be something different. Something that you can consider an album, it might not be physical, or a disc or something, but an album that comes with its own live show is important.”
Over the course of the nearly 30-minute conversation, Chance also discussed collaborating with Kanye West on The Life of Pablo and how his show-stopping turn on album opener “Ultralight Beam” came to be. “That song wasn’t even a thing,” he admitted. “When I came to meet up with ‘Ye, there were 10 songs exactly on the album… it felt like a very complete project when he brought me in.” Chance revealed that “Ultralight Beam” was originally meant to be a G.O.O.D Friday single,but that it eventually morphed into something that seemed to belong on the album.
The Chicago rapper — whose father worked for Barack Obama during his first term — then discussed the results of the 2016 presidential election for the first time. When Semtex asked him how he felt about it, he paused for a moment before responding:
“How do I feel about it? I’m indifferent, man, in all honesty. You’re my man so I’m gonna keep it so real with you. I knew Donald Trump was gonna win. And I think anybody in the world who’s surprised by the election of Donald Trump has been ignorant of racism and the tides and patterns of American history and world history. I think what we had with Barack Obama was an anomaly and it was something young and fresh and new and exciting and real, and I think us as Americans and as the world got spoiled off of it for eight years. We had an amazing run, but America’s so much bigger than the places where our media outlets are. There’s a lot of people that just… I don’t even know, you know? I’m not one of the people in protest of his presidency. I’m definitely in protest of his plans that I’ve heard so far, but I don’t know.”
Check out the full interview below. Chance’s remarks on his forthcoming album begin around the 26-minute mark.
