For new hip-hop fans, it may be hard to recall when Chance The Rapper was the genre’s golden child. But as the Chicago native continues to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his breakout mixtape Acid Rap, his impact on the culture and his fellow emcees is reentering mainstream consciousness. However, according to Chance, he didn’t always feel appreciated.
During a sit down with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden on The Ebro Show, the entertainer opened up about the more difficult points of his career.
“The toughest challenge I ever experienced was I went on tour with Macklemore,” said Chance.
He quickly clarified that the stain had nothing to do with his past collaborator, adding, “Macklemore is an amazing, amazing person and helped me out tremendously as well. But his shows were in Europe, and I think it was 38 dates, all 20,000 capacity rooms, all like off markets, too, like Poland and Dusseldorf. These people didn’t speak English at all. And not only did they not speak English, he sold out all these shows before I was announced on the ticket.”
Chance continued, “So it’s really bad when you go to a show, and there’s an opener that you don’t want to see. It’s way worse when it’s a surprise opener that you don’t want to see. That’s speaking a different language and Black, a lot of negatives on top of each other for the Swedish crowds. So I’m dealing with that.”
All in all, eventually, Chance used that experience to help improve his performance and as fuel for when it was his tour to headline. “When I came home, I got to finally feel at the end of that year when I went on my own solo tour, I got to feel having my own crowd, selling my own tickets and really built my whole off that tour,” he exclaimed.
Fast-forward to the present day, there aren’t many people who don’t know in some shape or form who Chance The Rapper is.