Chance the Rapper and Jordan Peele are currently leading the pack in their respective fields, so it makes sense that the two would sit down for a chat.
For Teen Vogue’s latest issue, Peele interviews Chance and discusses a myriad of things, including systemic injustice.
Both men have highlighted these issues in their work, Chance through philanthropy and Peele through his hit movie, Get Out.
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Touching on how his generation handles racism, the 2017 ESSENCE Festival headliner told the director, “The problem is that my generation was pacified into believing that racism existed only in our history books.”
“Now we’re in the age of instant information, where just looking at Twitter we can find out that unarmed people of color are being murdered by the police at an alarming rate. It’s kind of the same as when your generation saw Rodney King. There were a bunch of people who stood up and said, ‘Hey, this is happening all the time, and you guys just happen to know about it now because there’s video footage.’”
“The police force is systematically racist, and it is designed so that they have the right to murder us and not face the same consequences as anyone else. But it is the young folks, the twentysomethings across history, that say, ‘Hey, we about to switch sh*t up.’ I think we just happen to be the generation that makes the change,” he added.
The rapper also shed light on what it’s like working with Kanye, revealing that, contrary to what you might believe, Kanye doesn’t mind when people step up and challenge him.
“I think it made him respect me to a certain extent in a different way. When I stepped in there, I was Kanye’s prodigy, not necessarily his protégé because everyone else in the room had been working with him for years. He knew I am somebody who has some answers of my own.”
Be sure to grab your tickets to see Chance light up the stage, along with more of the biggest names in music, at the 2017 ESSENCE Festival in New Orleans this July!
