Chance the Rapper Talks Musical Independence, Working With Kanye, and More in New Zane Lowe Interview

Chance the Rapper sat down with Beats 1 Radio's Zane Lowe for a wide-ranging interview.

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Complex Original

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Chance the Rapper sat down with Beats 1 Radio's Zane Lowe today for a wide-ranging interview. One of the biggest takeaways was his disagreement with the way labels operate. "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," he said. "I've learned not to be like fuck this company or fuck that company, even though a lot of those people tried to make it really hard for me to release my project.

The Chicago MC touched on a number of topics, including making music in his hometown, and not being eligible for the Grammys. "Because of this timing, I think it was important to have these mixtapes be trilogized and be a thing that existed," he said. "Regardless of how the revolution goes, I know that I was not on the bus when everything was changing and I was like 'Fuck it, I'm still dropping mixtapes.'"

He explained that he thinks Chicago is such a hub of musical talent because of its separation from these industry complexities. "We've never had a music industry and I think because there was no industry or big labels posted there, it gave people a lot of air to make what the fuck they wanted to make and bred a lot of awesome talent across all genres."

He noted that he wanted to connect with Kanye on a project called Good Ass Job, which many fans may remember was originally the title of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He also delved into a lot of detail about working on The Life of Pablo, even playing his version of "Waves." Although Kanye cut out his original vocals, many of the aspects of the original version remain.

His relationship with Jay Electronica also came up, with Chance repeating Jay's recent claims that they had more music in the works. "I might make a tape with Jay Electronica soon," he said, before professing his love for Jay's music.

Chance has been riding high recently following the release of his latest mixtape Coloring Bookwhich made history this week by becoming the first project to debut in the Top 10 of the Billboard charts based off streaming alone. It ended up being streamed over 57.3 million times, which equated to roughly 38,000 units. This was good enough for Coloring Book to nab the No. 8 spot on the Billboard chart. The project has been widely praised by critics, fans, and big names in the industry.

Watch the full interview above, peep the OG versions of "Waves" and "Famous" below, and relive Chance's Complex cover story here.

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