After a sold-out show at Webster Hall in New York City last night, Chance the Rapper and Donnie Trumpet stopped by The Breakfast Club this morning to talk about his come-up, community projects, his father's influence on him, classism in rap, his and relationships with Madonna, Jay Z, Drake, and other artists as well as the details on his upcoming album with The Social Experiment, Surf. Only problem was that Charlemagne hadn't ever listened to Chance, so that made for some interesting tension and banter. Here's some of what we learned:
Chance on classism in the rap game:
"I think it's weird that rap is one of the only...not just competitive sport music but contact sport music. It always feels like there has to be one defined, objective, winner of music. We always have to find one person that's killing everybody else, and it's not really like that in other genres. I don't think it's just weird, I think it's systematically like that because it's a predominately black art and it's a successful art, so people don't want it to be like a bunch of people taking over music. I think everybody can move successfully and do what they want to do and make the type of music they want to make, and it will make the genre as a whole -- and not just the genre but because, like we said it's a predominately black genre, it will make the people move as a whole."
Chance on the mission of the Social Experiment:
"The Social Experiement is more than just me and Donnie, but it is a collective of a lot of different artists that are interested in making dope, free stuff. It doesn't even really just refer to music. It's a blend of production and writing. That's how we started off. After I finished my last project, Acid Rap, I started doing a lot of writing and producing for other artists in this collective called the Social Experiment. Eventually while we were touring, as my back-up band for my live shows, we started making songs that we thought we shouldn't necessarily show this to anybody [for them to use], we should put it out ourselves. Since then we've just been on kind of a mission to make the dopest stuff that we can possible."
On the future of the music industry:
"The whole thing with music is that it's moving in a direction where it's going to become a little bit more exclusive. I love the way that music is very inclusive, and it's used to bring a lot of people to different things, mainly advertising, building of brands and stuff. It's not just a black thing anymore, it's not just a musical thing. It's about music and lyrics, it's about being able to relate with people. And I think all of that stuff is dope, but we're kinda trying to retract it into a ... Bohemian society."
Chance on not signing to a label:
"[A label] can put you in a lot of different places, but it's about being the manager of the project, of the product. So for me and the Social Experiment it's about that groundwork; it's about having that person-to-person connection. So people that buy my music or invest in me as a product and as a person know me, and they feel like I'm connected to the community and connected just in a way that's closer than that third person relationship when you're buying an album from Def Jam, but you're supporting this one artist. The label is pushing the product then there's the consumer, and the consumer is the john."
Chance on his relationship with Madonna:
"We're close friends. She's a very respectable woman. I met her through Frank Ocean, he brought her to a show out in L.A. Frank had put her onto the music and we met real quick. We didn't talk for a while, and I was at some festival and I got a call from Jay Z and he was like, 'Yo, Madonna asked me to get on this 'Iconic' record, and I think it would be better if someone who is a new person who could be a new icon got on the track.'"
Chance on The Social Experiment's upcoming album, Surf:
"I think everyone is excited for this Surf project, which is the first Social Experiment project. I mean I think if it wasn't for that project, I probably wouldn't have sold out Webster Hall; or gotten the cover of FADER; or be here talkin' to y'all. Everybody is looking for what I'm going to do next and I'm glad people are interested. And the answer is, I'm going to do new music and new dope sh*t."
Donnie Trumpet on The Social Experiment's upcoming album, Surf:
"Surf originally was a play about wanting to live in L.A. and living in Chicago. Obviously there's no surf culture in Chicago like there is in L.A., but we were making a lot of wavy music. It was an ironic play on the word and the idea of surfing and that being a part of the culture. It kept growing, changing and evolving, and we brought it to the collective and it's changed a lot and morphed into what it is. It has all around good vibes."
Watch the full interview for yourself below, and let us know what you think in the comments section!
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