Chance the Rapper Reveals He Almost Signed to Sony During University of Chicago Lecture

Chance the Rapper just released his excellent new mixtape Coloring Book. It was released as a two-week exclusive on Apple Music, but the project was not connected to a record label. Yesterday, Chance sat down for an hour-long lecture with Bakari Kitwana at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. During the conversation, he revealed that he nearly signed to Sony back in 2012–following the release of his first mixtape 10 Day, but before Acid Rap came out.

He recalled a meeting with current Epic Records president Sylvia Rhone (whom he emphasized his respect for, saying “I don’t want to paint her as a bad person at all”) and Epic chairman/CEO L.A. Reid. Chance said that, in his head, he was imagining visiting a record label to be like a scene from The Cheetah Girls where the fictional girl group “prove” themselves to the executives by performing at the meeting. He said:

I’m playing it for ’em and they’re like, jammin’, and they’re like, “Do your dance!” and I’m in that bitch like, “Ah, yeah!” playing “Chainsmoker” singing the words louder than the speaker and shit ’cause Acid Rap wasn’t out yet, so they hadn’t heard it, but I was hyped on it, and I was like, “These people really fuck with me. These people really love me. These people really love me. These people really understand what I’m trying to do,” and they were talking about printing up contracts.

Then, suddenly, Chance’s dad called him and said, “Son, I know you’re in New York. I know you’re doing something really important, but remember, don’t sign anything!” Of course, he did not sign the deal.

Later, he briefly explained the distinction between mastering and publishing rights, but he conceded, “None of that shit makes any sense, right? That shit didn’t make sense to you ’cause that shit is goofy as hell!” He continued:

All of these ideas and constraints in terms of records and intellectual property and, you know, the legality of using that music or moving that music is all very new, and music is not. So, since a very, very long time ago, there were people that would sit around on the street and they’d play an instrument and anybody that walked past could get that music for first, and at a certain point somebody said, “Let me get a hat,” and they put money in that bitch. That was the beginning of the music industry, and ever since then, music industry has tried to keep up with music because music moves so fast ’cause there’s so many people thinking and creating it, and right now, we’re in another one of those spaces where the industry is kind of catching up, but there’s still that space in between music and music industry.

Elsewhere in the interview, he talks about his charity, his crew, and more. Eventually, he took questions from the crowd. One fan asked about the evolution of Chance’s album artwork. Another asked for Chance’s thoughts on social media. The Epic Records story begins around 19:18 and the publishing discussion begins around 28:35. Watch the whole interview below.

Read “Charting Chance the Rapper’s Unsigned Success” on the Pitch.

Watch Chance the Rapper’s “No Problem” video:

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