Chance the Rapper Further Slams Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, Sings Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas”

Yesterday, Chance the Rapper stopped by Chicago hip-hop/R&B station WGCI for a chat. He talked about his criticism of Spike Lee’s film Chi-Raq, getting parental advice from Jay-Z, appearing on “Saturday Night Live“, the killing of Laquan McDonald, and more. Chance also announced the Warmest Winter initiative, which aims to raise $100,000 to purchase 1000 winter coats for homeless Chicagoans.

While on the show, he also partook in a little bit of caroling, singing Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas”.

Listen to his full interview below.

During the chat with WGCI’s Chicago Morning Takeover, Chance responded to Lee’s claims that Chance is biased because his father works for the city’s mayor.

“I mean, Spike Lee is saying that ’cause he’s promoting a movie. He’s trying to make more money,” Chance said. “He got his little 15 million from Amazon and his other little bread from Lionsgate and made a movie that was not about Chicago but, you know what I’m saying, manipulated and used Chicago actors and Chicago scenery to push this movie.”

He added, “It was an oversimplification of a bigger problem. He wasn’t really focusing on the issues of Chicago, it wasn’t really about Chicago. To me, it was about this age-old conversation of black on black violence, which is to me some Bill Cosby ‘pull up your pants’ stuff. I’m just not for it.”

He also said, “I was trying to explain to people outside of Chicago that it was marketed to that this isn’t a representation of us and we’re not rockin’ with it.”

In the movie, Nick Cannon and Wesley Snipes play two rival gang leaders, whose competition guides a lot of the drama. “The reason why we’re dying isn’t because there’s two head gangbangers that are into it,” Chance said. “We’re dying because we all have PTSD, you know, post-traumatic stress disorder. Kids as young as seven, and younger than that, have seen people murdered in front of them. So that starts a paranoia in your mind that you’re walking around with. When you’re walking around and you feel like people are trying to kill you, you shoot when you get scared. That’s a problem that even I have. That’s a problem that a lot of people suffer. And I feel like he didn’t address that. He made it seem like we’re doing it because of gang life, and because our male ego is being compromised when we don’t fight. But that’s the smallest form of it.”

While talking about the killing of McDonald, who was shot by a Chicago police officer last fall (video of the shooting did not surface until November, causing accusations of a cover-up), Chance said “all of them are guilty,” including Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

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