How Chance The Rapper is using his stardom to help the city of Chicago
Chance The Rapper has vaulted to the top of the music world since his debut just a couple years ago.
But the Chicago native hasn’t forgotten about his roots and origins, he wants to help his city deal with issues from gang violence to homelessness and inspire the next generation of Chicagoans.
On Memorial Day weekend back in 2014, Chance The Rapper organized the Save Chicago campaign, where people stood out on street corners to deter violence and radio DJs urged people to “put their guns down.”
Chance described the campaign on Twitter:
when i was in LA My pops asked me to help with a project. He was tryin to get Community Org's in CHI to prevent every murder on Memorial Day
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) May 27, 2014
The plan was to get these mass numbers of people out on street corners Friday night with posters and banners with the plea "#SAVECHICAGO"
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) May 27, 2014
His plan was to get radio stations like @WGCI and @Power92Chicago to say "PUT YOUR GUNS DOWN CHICAGO" every hour on the hour the wk before
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) May 27, 2014
And even though i was outta town i checked in constantly. come to FIND OUT WE WENT 42 HOURS FROM THURSDAY TO SATURDAY NIGHT W/O ONE SHOOTING
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) May 27, 2014
The campaign was a success, the city went 42 hours with zero shootings in Chicago, a city that had over 3,500 shootings last year.
Last winter, Chance organized the Warmest Winter project with help from The Empowerment Plan, a nonprofit out of Detroit.
The Empowerment Plan hires homeless women as seamstresses at their factory to supply stable income and Chance wants to bring the nonprofit to Chicago and open another factory there.
The Warmest Winter project’s goal was to provide warmth for the homeless people of Chicago during the harsh winters on Lake Michigan.
These are truly admirable actions from the young rapper.
Chance got some help in the community organizing and political sphere with his family connections.
His dad, Ken Bennett, is a former Obama aide and currently on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s staff.
This might explain Chance’s social activism and his work in Chicago, especially his ability to follow through on his pledges as he’s plugged up with organizations and political figures to make his visions come to fruition.
All of this has us thinking… does Chance have a future in politics?