I can't see myself ever having somebody say something about me on a song and me being like, 'All right, now I'm about to say something about them on a song.'
— Chance The Rapper
I'm definitely tired of playing 'Acid Rap.' I'm definitely tired of playing 'Juice.'
I think the music industry is something that's very separate from music. So, by always staying on the music side of it, I've found success.
I'm a patriarch now. I've got to go get the bread.
I used to be the class clown. I was the funny kid. That's why it was so hard for people to understand that I rap, because for a long time, they didn't take me seriously for who I was. By, like, eighth grade, I was really rapping.
I'm just trying to be an example for all the young artists that are becoming artists every day and working on their craft and trying to help them avoid the pitfalls of the upper management in music and the non-music side of music.
I want to tell people to read 'The Prince' by Machiavelli - check that one out. It's just changed my attack so - I think so much more inwardly.
I think the only thing that's really going to make a change in terms of how we feel as citizens in terms of safety and our relationship with the police is if we start seeing more federal indictments, arrests, and convictions of police officers.
If you can give away free music, you can give away free electricity, free water. Those tiny jabs at a larger infrastructure are what make revolutions.
I can't gain anything off of anyone else not succeeding.
I feel like LeBron James is an amazing basketball player, but he's also a community person.
Everything you write as an artist is about your legacy and your catalog and how you would look in a museum.
When I was going out and trying to fully give glory to God, in my setting, I feared that people would be dismissive of it, like, 'This is Christian rap. I'm not trying to hear it.' But it's the total opposite: People were very accepting of it.
I think that's always the goal of art, is to make people ask themselves questions.
I was a mad, impressionable kid, and every skit from 'The College Dropout' was telling me how I didn't need school.
I think, as a black man, I have a responsibility to have knowledge and have an opinion.
I don't necessarily think, as a person of influence, that it's always my job to influence people regarding my opinion.
I'm lucky to be in a space where I've been accepted for who I am and celebrated for who I am.
I'm still a very frugal person. But everything that does get spent is a reinvestment into my own music.
I think there's a lot of taboos in hip-hop that people try and stay away from. I think a big one is, people are afraid to speak about God to a certain extent, and I think if you're not free to speak about God, then you're not free.
When you become a parent, you start loving diapers.
I don't think I really knew I was going to be a rapper until sixth grade. Even then, it was still kind of - I was in sixth grade. I was always saying I was going to become a rapper.
I have a bigger voice than Donald Trump, you know what I'm saying? Than literally anybody that works in politics.
Anything is respectable in its own realm.
I think #BlackLivesMatter is a huge campaign that is important and integral to our advancement as a people.
When you make stuff from the 'you' point of view, you really can't go wrong.
I never really liked the idea of rap being a competitive thing. It's not.
I think it's very important for America that we're represented as promoters of peace, love, and understanding.
We've been conditioned to understand music as a field where you get discovered, and you're always trying to find that end. So 'my shot' is speaking of a variety of shots. When you're a rapper, you look at every shot as the one you're supposed to take.
I don't make Christian rap, but I am a Christian rapper.
One of my biggest fears with 'Coloring Book' was that it would be labeled. I hate labels. I never sought out for people to recognize it as a gospel album.
When I found Freestyle Fellowship, I started getting into the construction of rap. You get better at it the more you do it; you figure out the science and the math behind it.
My grandmother is a huge part of my life. She's just a great woman: a woman of the church.
I don't consider being a musician the same thing as being a celebrity.
I don't agree with the way labels are set up. I don't agree that anyone should sign 360 deals or sign away their publishing or take most of the infrastructure that's included in a formal deal.
There's so much positivity in the world and your day-to-day life that to go as far as to say that you hate something or you wish it didn't exist and all the bad things in the world happen to you and only you, it's a joke. It's not real to have that much hate in your heart.
Selling music doesn't make that much money.
I think I always knew I wasn't gonna have a regular job.
I am scared of death.
If I was to buy a suit, I'd probably go to Men's Wearhouse - because you're going to like the way you look; they guarantee it.
I want my music to be beautiful.
Taylor Swift is just dope. She is an ill songwriter.
Something I try to instill in others is to just be a good person. It's a decision you make a million times a day. But if you just keep trying, good stuff comes to you in an ordained way.
When I write, I work off of a theme, an emotion, a narrative - thinking of it and then expounding on it.
'Hamilton' is revolutionary in terms of writing.
The problem is that my generation was pacified into believing that racism existed only in our history books.
I'm very into film and strengthening what it means to be a rapper and to be a black dude from Chicago.
When I was working on 'Coloring Book,' I knew that I wanted it to be a beacon for independent artists and music makers with their own agenda.
There was a point where I just did not care about my body.
I feel like, at a certain point in life, I'd like to be the type of man that gets married and has more serious relationships.
