In His Own Words: Chance the Rapper on empowering other artists to do their own thing

Chance the Rapper on iTunes.

In order for me to continue to thrive, I need more artists to do it themselves. I try and stress this as often as possible. I don’t mean do it by yourself, like literally, like, “I’m doing everything.” You can bring on your friends and professionals that you know and build a business where you’re the upper management. Where you’re the creative, and you are the last decision maker, and you don’t ever have to feel compromised.

Labels, legally, should have to release a list of names of all the people they have signed. Because if you knew how many artists are in deals with any label, you’d be like, who the fuck is this? Why did you sign this person seven years ago and their debut album is still shelved? Why don’t I know anything about this artist? I don’t want to see people keep going through that, and I also want to see myself thrive. I’d like to be proof that it works.

I don’t want to be the one guy it worked for. That’s not my goal at all. I’m trying to get other motherfuckers to just do it.

You do need a manager; you do need somebody to book stuff for you; you do need an assistant; you do need video directors and an engineer and a tour manager and a production manager. There’s a lot of things that you’ll need as you expand. But [when] you sign to a label, you get a boss, and that shit’s just fucked up to me. Why should you have a boss?

CHANCE the RAPPER

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(Quote is from the Complex interview by NOAH CALLAHAN-BEVER / photos via Facebook)

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you can find more inspiring artist quotes in the gtc archives