Chance the Rapper Bio

Latest posts by Simoun Redoblado (see all)

In an industry filled with larger-than-life characters, Chance the Rapper has risen to prominence for playing a role that’s surprisingly difficult to pull off: the everyman.

While many of his peers glorify the playboy lifestyle, replete with gold chains and fancy cars, Chano from Chicago seems perfectly comfortable with a plain look and a low-key personality. Though pretense is part and parcel of the rap game, Chance has a special gift for exuding authenticity and relating to a widely diverse audience. By all indications, what you see is what you get from Chance.

Before I paid him any serious attention, I’d come across the name “Chance the Rapper” on hip hop articles and think, That’s a ridiculous name. (At least Tyler, the Creator had the wherewithal to place a comma after his first name, which is way more commonplace than “Chance”!)

But when I got to watch him up close on the first season of Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow, Chance definitely stood out. Next to the flamboyant Cardi B and the veteran Tip, Chance came across as a soft-spoken fellow who could have been the guy that you bumped into at the local 7-Eleven.

Whether this was an act or notand it sure seems like it wasn’tChance soon won me over with his body of work. Funnily enough, whereas his personality is almost quiet to a fault, his songs are filled with resplendent production, festive lines, and crowd-popping hooks. I realized, then, that while Chance fits perfectly in just about any crowd, he sets himself apart because he’s got just a bit more euphoria emanating from his presence.

Quick Facts

Birth Date April 16, 1993
Birth Place Chicago, Illinois
Nick Name Chano, Chano from 79th
Nationality American
Zodiac Sign Aries
Siblings Taylor Bennett (brother)
Children Kensli Bennett (b. 2015)

 

Marli Grace Bennett (b. 2019)

Partner/Spouse Kirsten Corley (m. 2019)
Most Successful Songs “No Problem” (feat. 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne)

 

“I Might Need Security”

“Hot Shower” (feat. MadeinTYO and DaBaby)

Net Worth Estimated value of $25 million (as of 2022)
Social Media twitter.com/chancetherapper

 

instagram.com/chancetherapper

facebook.com/chancetherapper

Major Awards 3x Grammy Award winner

 

2016 Best New Hip Hop Artist, BET Hip Hop Awards

2017 Best Collaboration (for “No Problem” feat. 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne), BET Awards

Last updated July 25, 2022

Early Years

Chicago, Illinois

Chancelor Johnathan Bennett was born on April 16, 1993, in Chicago, Illinois. Both of his parents had lengthy experience working for public officials. Chancelor’s father, Ken Williams-Bennett, served as deputy chief of staff to former mayor Harold Washington. At the same time, Chancelor’s mother, Lisa Bennett, was a staff member at the office of the Illinois Attorney General.

During his career in public service, Ken Bennett also worked for a relatively obscure senator named Barack Obama. After history was made in 2008 with the election of Obama as the United States’ first black President, Ken served as the Chief Executive’s deputy assistant during his first term. As such, the teenage Chancelor got to meet President Obama when Ken brought his family to the Oval Office on one occasion. When Chancelor let the President know that he was an aspiring rapper, Obama (whose love for rap is no secret) simply said, “Word.”

How did Chancelor come to identify himself as a musical act in front of the most powerful man in the country? His parents also happen to be responsible for igniting the spark of his passion for music. In a 2013 interview with Complex, Chance stated that his mom and dad listened to the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire, Prince, and Michael Jackson. Chance took a special liking to MJ; up until his fourth grade, his musical diet consisted mainly of Michael Jackson songs immortalized on VHS.

Taking His Chances with Rap

College Dropout
College Dropout

Around fourth or fifth grade, Chancelor fell in love with the music of Kanye West. In the same Complex interview, he recounted the story of how he received a copy of the explicit version of College Dropout. (From whom? The mother of his female love interest!)

Though Chancelor hid the CD from his mother for a long time, Lisa Bennett eventually found it out; she then made her son “throw it away and get the clean version.” Aside from finding this anecdote funny, I realize that these events planted the seeds for Chance’s future partnership with Ye, as well as Ye’s painfully obvious influence on Chance’s music. (For what it’s worth, Chance also started listening to Lupe Fiasco, Eminem, Common, and Lil Wayne around this time.)

Chancelor started harboring serious thoughts about pursuing a hip hop career when he visited the studio of Chef Sean, a distant cousin who happened to be a Chicago-based rapper. Showing support for her son’s ambition, Lisa paid Chef Sean to help Chancelor record songs. His earliest recordings include two freestyles over beats bywho else?Kanye West.

In his freshman year of high school, Chance decided to take things a step further by forming a “rap group” called Instrumentality. This was no ensemble: the group simply consisted of Chance and his childhood buddy Justin “J-Emcee” Cuttington. The duo went on to record more than fifty songs and four mixtapes over the course of their high school years. Instrumentality even staged live performances in Chicago’s South Side; during these events, J-Emcee would act as Chance’s hypeman.

Teenage Chance also capitalized on two platforms that helped him gain better recognition: social media and a Chicago youth learning space. On the one hand, he and J-Emcee would post their music on YouTube; and send DMs asking their friends on Facebook to share their work. On the other hand, Chance frequently visited the YOUmedia youth center of the Chicago Public Library. As a regular performer during open mic nightin front of an audience of 200Chance honed both his lyrical prowess and his onstage presence.

It was in the context of Chance’s humble beginnings as a performer that the Bennett family’s picture with President Obama was taken. Here’s an additional tidbit: Ken had actually instructed his son to not tell the President that he was a rapper. As a matter of fact, Ken wanted Chance to say out loud that he would be a lawyer. But Chance said what he said; consequently, father and son did not speak with each other for a certain period.

Chance Makes His Debut

Despite Ken Bennett’s feelings towards his son’s rap ambition, Chance was adamant that he would pursue a hip hop career rather than go to college. He came one step closer to launching that career after a supposedly demoralizing episode in 2011, during his senior year in high school.

Right before spring break, Chance was handed a 10-day suspension after he was caught smoking marijuana. Instead of wallowing in misery, Chance drew motivation from these circumstances; and harnessed that motivation to write new songs while serving his suspension. He quickly came up with a project concept that was inspired by his sanction, and in the ensuing months, he worked on fleshing out the concept for his debut release.

Ken Bennettand and Chance
Ken Bennett and Chance From Fandom

During the 12-month period in which Chance worked on this project, he got caught up in a dangerous situation that ended up inflicting trauma on his young psyche. In September 2011, Rodney Kyles Jr. was stabbed to death right in front of Chance after a fight broke out in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. Chance later stated that, after the incident, he and his father “got really, really close and got on the same page.” It was then that Ken Bennett expressed his support for what his son wanted to accomplish.

It’s also worth pointing out that the mere presence of Ken Bennett in Chance’s formative years is way more than what so many other hip hop greats got from their own fathers. Having written biographical articles on several rap legends, I’d have to say that Chance is incredibly blessed to have a dad who was readily available and openly supportive of his career. Sadly, this was a privilege that was never experienced by rappers like Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, and Jay-Z.

On April 3, 2012—less than two weeks before his 19th birthday—Chance dropped his debut mixtape 10 Day. This project was dominated by cloud rap, a lo-fi inspired subgenre of Southern rap that first gained popularity in the late 2000s. While Chance had a hand in the writing of all 14 tracks, production duties were handled by Flying Lotus, MF Love, Chuck Inglish, and a slew of other producers that he had met through the YOUmedia center.

10 Day turned out to be a successful initial project, as evidenced by hundreds of thousands of streams and downloads (as well as the critical acclaim that it drew from the Chicago rap community). As such, the mixtape validated Chance’s inclusion in Complex magazine’s “10 New Chicago Rappers to Watch Out For”, a list that came out two months prior to 10 Day‘s release. In addition, 10 Day was featured in Forbes magazine’s “Cheap Tunes” column. (Heads up: this column was called “Cheap Tunes” because it featured hot new tunes that were “available for free or a small fee”—and not because it considered the songs’ quality to be “cheap”!)

Doubling Down on the DIY

Slowly but surely, Chance’s hip hop network widened. In July 2012, he appeared on the Childish Gambino track “They Don’t Like Me”; and joined Gambino’s North America tour that summer as an opening act.

On April 30, 2013, Chance released his second mixtape, Acid Rap. Aside from the acid jazz elements infused in the project, the term “acid” also points to Chance’s use of LSD during the production of the mixtape. Acid Rap debuted at the number 63 spot on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and went on to be downloaded more than one million times on the online distribution platform DatPiff. (Three years later, President Obama would include the track “Acid Rain” in his 2016 Summer Playlist.)

With all the mainstream attention that Chance’s music was drawing, major record labels upped the ante in terms of reaching out to him with the hopes of signing the up-and-coming artist. Chance, however, would turn them all down. In a 2017 Complex interview, he underscored his DIY approach “where you’re the creative, and you are the last decision maker, and you don’t ever have to feel compromised.” Chance also expressed his hope that more artists would take the independent approach: “I need more artists to do it themselves…I don’t want to be the one guy it worked for.”

Making More Friends

Acid Rap

In the two years that followed the release of Acid Rap, Chance became an even more prominent figure in the contemporary hip hop scene. In May 2014, he was featured on the cover of XXL as a member of the magazine’s Annual Freshman Class. (Chance shared the cover with fellow rising stars Ty Dolla $ign, Isaiah Rashad, Vic Mensa, and Lil Durk.) Chano also made it to the Forbes 30 under 30 2015 Music list.

During this two-year span, he also took on varied projects with an assortment of collaborators. These include a March 2015 Colin Tilley-directed short film entitled Mr. Happy (in which Chance portrayed a man struggling with depression); the release of the 2015 album Surf as the initial outing of his Chicago-based group called The Social Experiment; an appearance on the 2015 Madonna track “Iconic” (which featured a spoken introduction by Mike Tyson); and a live performance alongside Earth, Wind & Fire and Kendrick Lamar at the 2015 Bonnaroo Music Festival.

In each of these lists and collaborative ventures, Chance is nothing less than a perfect fit. To me, this reinforces his everyman persona. Chance’s humble presence opened numerous doors of opportunities across different forms of media and performance. (And to think that he was just 22 years old when he shared the stage with Earth, Wind & Fire!)

Chano Wins the Big One

Coloring Book Chance the Rapper
Coloring Book Chance the Rapper

In 2016, Chance released his career’s magnum opus. On May 12, his third mixtape Coloring Book, came out on Apple Music. Inspired by recent life events (such as the birth of his daughter and his renewed spirituality), Chance filled Coloring Book with the upbeat vibes of gospel rap and dance tunes. Joining him in this festive record were artists like Kanye West, Justin Bieber, Ty Dolla $ign, and Future.

My favorite cut from Coloring Book (which, I’m sure, is everyone’s favorite as well) is “No Problem.” In this track, Chance makes his ultimate statement as a DIY, independent musical act: “If one more label try to stop me/It’s gon’ be some dread head niggas in your lobby/You don’t want no problem, want no problem with me.” Along with featured rappers 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne, Chance takes a carefree tone as he celebrates his unique journey in the rap game thus far.

Dare I say that this is Chance’s finest work thus far? Sure enough, “No Problem” was nominated for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance at the 2017 Grammy Awards. Though “No Problem” won neither award, Chance went home with some serious hardware that night as Coloring Book was named Best Rap Album. This was history in the making, as Coloring Book was the first-ever major hip hop project to win a Grammy solely on the strength of streams.

One final note on Coloring Book: the mixtape bested five other nominees for the Best Rap Album award. One of these was The Life of Pablo, a project by his childhood favorite, Kanye West. Chance’s win takes on an additional layer of irony since he wrote, produced, and even performed on some songs on The Life of Pablo!

Endorsements, Features, and His First Album

The Big Day
The Big Day

Aside from the release of Coloring Book, Chance’s 2016 was monumental thanks to tie-ups with brands like Kit Kat, H&M, and Nike; a performance at the ESPY Awards for the recently deceased Muhammad Ali; and the launch of his Magnificent Coloring World Tour in San Diego.

Over the next three years, he made guest appearances on songs by artists like DJ Khaled (2017’s “I’m the One” and 2018’s “No Brainer”), Cardi B (2018’s “Best Life”), and Ed Sheeran (2019’s “Cross Me”). Chance also lent verses to tracks by his brother Taylor Bennett, who had followed in his footsteps as a rap artist.

By this point in Chance’s career, there was one more milestone that he had—surprisingly—not yet attained: dropping his first studio album. He finally checked this off his to-do list when he dropped The Big Day on July 26, 2019. The Big Day was inspired by Chance’s real-life wedding, which took place just four months prior to the album’s release. Family and growth were also dominant themes in this album, which featured appearances from his brother Taylor and even his father, Ken.

Though The Big Day debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, it was panned by some fans and critics because it supposedly failed to live up to the standard set by Coloring Book. I chalk this up to the typical progression of rappers; since Chance had reached a creative high with the Coloring Book mixtape, his fanbase would be conditioned to compare all his subsequent releases to that project (for better or for worse).

Be that as it may, I can’t help but empathize with his situation; it was rather obvious that, among all his projects, he had a distinct personal connection to The Big Day and all that it represented. On Twitter, Chance admitted that he felt “super heavy” after reading all the criticism online. This just goes to show the trappings of an artist: all forms of scrutiny, whether warranted or unwarranted, are fair game once you put out your work to the world.

In a March 2022 interview with Chicago Sun Times, Chance admitted that he returned to writing music in September 2021. Did the backlash against The Big Day have anything to do with his two-year songwriting hiatus? Whatever the case may be, Chance said in the same interview that he was working on “a personal album of pieces set to be released later [in 2022].”

In all likelihood, Chance will complete this process of turning a negative into a positive—something that he’s been doing since that fateful 10-day suspension in his high school years. If nothing else, this episode of Chance’s life and career proves that he’s just like any one of us: a flawed mortal who has to withstand the pressure of expectations in order to attain the fulfillment of self-expression.

Legacy

Chance The rapper
Image From Chance The Rapper Fandom

In more ways than one, Chance the Rapper will go down in hip hop history as an independent spirit. From his refusal to sign with a record label to his ever-transforming style of music, Chance embodies the creative freedom that all rap artists crave. His impressive streaming numbers and his industry recognition prove that a hip hop artist working independently is perfectly capable of putting together a successful career.

Why is Chance the Rapper Influential?

Aside from J. Cole, there is no rapper on the current scene that exemplifies DIY better than Chance. From his first mixtape all the way to his debut album, Chance was extremely active in both the production and the writing duties for his body of work. Chance’s example sends a clear message to all aspiring musical acts: before anyone invests in you, you need to fully invest in yourself first.

FAQs

Question: Does Chance have a family of his own?

Answer: Chance and his then-girlfriend Kirsten Corley welcomed their first child Kensli in 2015. The relationship between Chance and Kirsten went through a rocky phase, which ended when they reconciled in 2017. They got engaged in 2018 and got married in 2019. Six months after their wedding, they welcomed their second child Marli Grace.

Question: Is Chance an activist?

Answer: Chance has devoted his time and resources to multiple social advocacies. He has donated millions of dollars to Chicago public schools and mental health services. In August 2016, he started a nonprofit organization called SocialWorks, which seeks to address issues like education and homelessness. In August 2017, he met with Illinois governor Bruce Rauner to discuss recent cuts to public school funding, among other issues in the local education sector.

Question: What is Chance’s religion?

Answer: Chance identifies himself as a Christian. His 2017 mixtape Coloring Book is filled with references to Jesus Christ and His blessings.

Bottom Line

Chance the Rapper is by no means a perfect man, nor is he a flawless hip hop artist. He’s had to earn his stripes in a cutthroat industry, and he’s gone through relationship problems as well as a crisis of faith. In other words, Chance has clearly fought the same battles that so many other people have. His special gift, though, is turning all the turmoil into works of art that exude strength and hope. Chance is an everyman, alright, but he’s the type of fellow with an extra gear in him to make the next person smile.

Sources

  • How Chance the Rapper became Chicago’s hottest cultural export
  • https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2011-09-06-chi-rodney-kyles-homicide-richton-park-lincoln-park-20110906-story.html
  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/ogdenpayne/2017/05/13/a-list-of-everything-chance-the-rapper-accomplished-since-the-release-of-coloring-book/?sh=4b56f24e1cfd
  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/leorgalil/2012/04/11/cheap-tunes-chance-the-rappers-10day/?sh=299b9f1a6803
  • https://www.biography.com/musician/chance-the-rapper
  • https://djbooth.net/features/2016-10-19-chance-the-rapper-his-father-things-come-full-circle
  • https://www.businessinsider.com/chance-the-rapper-bio-history-2016-8#but-chance-didnt-keep-doing-the-same-thing-over-and-over-again-he-joined-a-band-and-made-uplifting-christian-rock-3
  • https://www.complex.com/music/2013/03/who-is-chance-the-rapper/
  • https://www.complex.com/music/2017/03/chance-the-rapper-interview-2017-cover-story
  • Google Books
  • https://twitter.com/POTUS44/status/763744742072913920/photo/2
  • https://www.allmusic.com/artist/chance-the-rapper-mn0003115050/biography
  • https://www.xxlmag.com/xxl-freshmen-2014-cover-revealed/
  • https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/3/24/22995308/chance-the-rapper-child-of-god-naila-opiangah-museum-of-contemporary-art
  • https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/richest-rappers/chance-rapper-net-worth/
  • https://www.popsugar.com/celebrity/how-many-kids-does-chance-rapper-have-47308166
  • https://www.chicagonow.com/the-artists-report/2018/10/chance-the-rapper-and-social-activism-why-his-work-matters-so-much/
  • https://www.socialworkschi.org/news/chance-the-rapper-on-art-and-activism-with-the-new-yorker-radio-hour/
  • https://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/03/politics/chance-the-rapper-illinois-governor-meeting-chicago-public-schools/index.html#:~:text=Chance%20the%20Rapper%20met%20with,He%20has%20my%20personal%20number.
  • https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/chance-the-rapper-interview-teen-vogue-kanye-west-7800145/

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top