BTS Photos of Chance The Rapper's Social Experiment Tour
If you haven't heard by now, Chance The Rapper had a pretty good year last year. The Chicago kid dropped Acid Rap in May and went on to essentially take the music scene by storm. After getting practice opening for Childish Gambino and Mac Miller on their tours, Chance decided to end 2013 right, by piling as many fellow artists and friends as he could fit into a pair of buses and traveling the country for two and a half months, selling out nearly every show along the way. One of those on the bus was talented photographer Allen Daniels whose Polaroid shots were used as a background for Chance's Riviera shows. He was a fly on the wall for the extent of the Social Experiment Tour and yesterday the tour documented through his lens hit the Internet on Chanceraps.com. Check out the shots of Pat The Manager, Peter CottonTale, Donnie Trumpet, Greg Landfair, Nate Fox and the gang in the gallery below.
[Photos via Allen Daniels]
Chance The Rapper: "Interlude (That's Love)" Live
Back in November, Chance The Rapper took a few days off of his headlining "Social Experiment" tour to play a pair of sold out shows at The Riviera in his hometown of Chicago. The dates, sandwiched around Thanksgiving were a milestone in the young artist's career, a full year almost to the day since he had first played his first sold out show at The Metro in support of his upcoming Acid Rap tape that eventually launched him into rarified air. The performances at The Riv were a quintessentially hometown experience that oozed Chicago from the get-go with Stunt Taylor opening things up with a run through of his street banger "Fe Fe on the Block" before turning the show over to Chance and his band, made up of Donnie Trumpet, Nate Fox, Greg Landfair and the tour's Music Director Peter CottonTale who re-arranged the tracks from Acid Rap to fit subtly into a live atmosphere. 2013 was the craziest year to date of young Chancelor Bennett's life, and he wrapped it up appropriately, as you can see in the video below, shot by Bryan Lamb (FragDFilms) and myself at the first show. It's a little late, but these days who can get enough Chance?
[Video] Donnie Trumpet & Peter CottonTale Talk Tour Life
Video by FragDfilms
Donnie Trumpet & Peter CottonTale have been very busy lately. The pair of Chicago-raised musicians each saw a transformation in their careers last year as Chance The Rapper's Acid Rap, aided by horn play from Donnie and plenty of production from CottonTale, vaulted their close friend to the forefront of not only the national hip-hop scene, but the larger music world in general.
At the time, Donnie was playing trumpet for Kids These Days, who broke up weeks after the Acid Rap release and spent the summer touring with Frank Ocean while CottonTale continued to work with Vic Mensa on Innanetape and joined Chance and Mac Miller on the road for a national tour. Everything came together in mid October as both appropriately were chosen by Chance to join him on his first national headlining tour, dubbed the "Social Experiment Tour." The tour, which ran from October through December 19 and sold out in almost every city, was a fitting end to a wild year for both Donnie and CottonTale, who served as Music Director for the tour. We caught up with the pair last week at Force One Seven Studios to get a little insight into what life on the road is like and what the whole experience meant to each.
Check out the full video below and be sure to catch Donnie Trumpet performing tomorrow night at The Riff in Chicago's South Loop for his "Farewell Donnie" show, details listed below the video.
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[Video] Donnie Trumpet: "Don't Leave" (Feat. Vic Mensa)
Chicago's own Donnie Trumpet stays busy. After last week, which saw him drop a project, Loopie, and appear on Mike Golden's song "Hey Jane" with fellow Save Money member Vic Mensa, Donnie is back with a video for "Don't Leave", another turn with Mensa handling the rap end of things. The video, shot by Naveen Chaubel, is a bit of a mystical dream that starts off with a ballerina performing at the foot of his bed, beckoning him to stay, as he knows he has to walk away. The experience leads to a very ethereal, zero gravity moment of reconciliation and reflection that is especially on point thanks to the talented director, Chaubel. This is the second time in a week that we've heard something new from the pair of former Kids These Days members, who have blossomed over the past year in their own individual lanes that have continued to get bigger by the day. Start your day off right with some Donnie Trumpet and Vic Mensa, "Don't Leave" streaming below.
Like the video? Catch Donnie at his "Farewell Show" next week in Chicago, check out the flyer for info below!
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[EP] Donnie Trumpet: "Loopie"
Former Kids These Days trumpet player Nico Segal has been building a following under his moniker Donnie Trumpet for some time now. Having dropped the somewhat, self-titled Donnie Trumpet late last Summer, the multi-talented young artist is back with his latest five track EP, Loopie. The name derives from the loop-based sensibility of the track. Instructions for Donnie himself accompany the track on his Soundcloud, informing listeners "click repeat 1 on iTunes and the beats will loop in time. Producers go ahead and make songs. Rappers rap raps." Donnie/Nico is a truly resilient artist who has begun carving out an interesting niche with creative ideas and a horn. Busy on the road with Frank Ocean all of last year, following the break up of KTD, Segal has been moving around the country working for what should be a prosperous 2014. Check out his latest streaming here below.
Mike Golden & Friends: "Hey Jane"
Later this month, Mike Golden & Friends will release their latest project, Utopia. Today, we get the lead single from the project, released today via the Internet. Featuring fellow Chicagoans Vic Mensa and Donnie Trumpet, "Hey Jane" is an emphatic play on dealing with the relationship with "Jane". Golden offers up an inspired, soulful chorus as Mensa continues to slaughter a wide variety of beats with his frenetic, changing rhyme scheme and easily relatable lyrics. Donnie adds his pieces in the background, helping to build the overall aesthetic of the track. If nothing else, "Hey Jane" should get you up out of bed to face the winter weather. Check out the track below, along with an exclusive behind the scenes video at Classick Studios from Davy Greenberg at Elephilms.
[Video] Chance The Rapper Performs on Arsenio Hall
Chance The Rapper and co. wrapped up their "Social Experiment Tour" yesterday in Los Angeles with a performance at the Nokia Theater. Before heading there, though, they made a stop at the Arsenio Hall Show where Chance, backed by his band of Peter CottonTale, Nico Segal, Nate Fox and Greg Landfair, and looking fresh to death in custom "Social Experiment" letterman jackets, played their re-arranged live version of "Chain Smoker" off of Acid Rap, which has steadily been making the rounds at the top of nearly everyone's top albums of the year list.
Throughout the performance Chano seemed to be reveling in the moment, soaking in the feeling of having propelled himself to this very point. As Chance closes the book on a historic 2013, his performance on "Arsenio" seemed to be a sort of revelatory moment. Watch the full streaming video below from last night and scroll just a little further for Chance's hilarious interview with Nardwuar while he was on tour in Vancouver.
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Early Chance The Rapper Tracks Discovered
Complex's Kyle Kramer is reporting a swath of mostly unheard Chance The Rapper material that was unearthed via Reddit late last night. The new (old) music is from Chance's high school days at Jones College Prep and after school sessions at YouMedia, the local poetry and spoken word program held at Harold Washington Library in Chicago's South Loop. The center was the breeding ground for much of the music coming out of the city today, including Kids These Days, Donnie Trumpet (Nico Segal), Vic Mensa, NoNameGypsy, Malcolm London, and plenty more. The tracks were recorded as part of Chano's group named Instrumentality and feature early cuts of many of the songs that fans know him by today, including a rough cut of "Nostalgia". Production for many of the tracks, available here below, is handled by close friend Nico Segal, who has been working behind the scenes with the likes of Frank Ocean and Hit Boy recently and should have be reaching listeners collective consciousnesses soon. The projects are titled Good Enough and Back to School Pack, and provide a sketching of the early days of Chano's career, which really weren't all that long ago. With the hometown kid on every publication, blog and website, take a trip back in time when things were a little more calm for Chancellor Bennett.