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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Vic Mensa & Chance The Rapper: "Suitcase"
Photo by Bryan Lamb
It's been one hell of a year for Save Money artists Vic Mensa & Chance The Rapper. Both dropped projects that vaulted each to the forefront of the hip-hop world with individually unique approaches to the art form that have captivated listeners across the country. Last night, the pair dropped a loosie single titled "Suitcase", appropriate given the amount of time each has spent one the road and traveling throughout 2013. The funky beat from Cam Osteen paces the backdrop for Chance's deliberate word play and Vic's silky smooth bars that are reminiscent of the off-kilter futuristic projection theme from his September 30 release Innanetape. On "Suitcase", he rhymes: "What if I was a newlywed, with a newborn of two weeks, and my flight to the UK crashed in the Yukon, and I woke up on a distant beach, with a peach in my mouth, sand in my hair and no shoes on-where am I?" Chance picks things up, singing the chorus of "Hit The Road Jack" in his nasally, whispering voice. As the most recent track since the longtime friends got together on "Tweakin'" off Innanaetape, it provides a solid platform from which each shows what they do best. Chance has gotten well-acquainted with his suitcase over the past two months while out on his headlining "Social Experiment" tour, and Vic will pack his bags soon for a tour with Disclosure, "Suitcase" may be a very fitting theme song. Check it out below.
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[RH Exclusive] Day 1 of Chance The Rapper's Social Experiment Tour
Chance The Rapper opened his debut headlining Social Experiment tour two and a half hours south of his hometown of Chicago on Friday October 25. Photographer/videographer Bryan Lamb and myself made the trip and were on hand for all the festivities as Chance and crew kicked things off at the University of Illinois. A majority of Save Money made the trip south, joining Chano onstage was none other than Vic Mensa who himself is currently between tours with J. Cole and Disclosure.
The set was the culmination of weeks worth of rehearsals and practice for Chance, Music Director Peter CottonTale and the rest of the backing band and sound crew including Greg Landfair, Nico Segal and Jake Lipp who rented out both the Metro and Reggie's to get a go-around of the stage set-up, lights and combination of both a solo part of the set, as well as one with the band. What the U of I crowd got was one hell of a show that went off as smooth as one could expect given the circumstances and which upped the bar for the remainder of the shows on the tour. Both CottonTale and Lipp, working behind the scenes, were pleased with the show and the fact that there were no major hiccups. Bryan (FragDFilms) did his thing and captured the first stop of the tour in the photos and video below, check it out and stay hooked to RH for continuing Social Experiment coverage.
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[RH Interview] Nate Fox
Photo by Bryan Lamb
A year ago, Nate Fox was living in Pittsburgh, working on a construction site. That all changed on April 30 when Chance The Rapper released his critically-acclaimed project, Acid Rap, featuring production from Fox. The past four months have taken him far from that manual labor life, traveling the country and then the world on the strength of his production and the success of Chance's latest release. To say it has been a long road is not an overstatement, after ten years plugging away in his native Pittsburgh and later Cleveland, Fox caught the ear of Chancellor with his beat for the Acid Rap single "Juice" with its quirky, bouncing, up-tempo beat. The rest is quickly becoming history as Fox and a talented team of producers including Peter CottonTale and Cam Osteen head back out on the road with Chance for his headlining Social Experiment tour. I got the opportunity to catch Fox while he was in Chicago preparing for the tour and had a chance to catch him for a few minutes between a salad and a session. Read about the crazy path his life has taken in 2013 and what lays ahead, below.
Jake: So I know you've had a crazy summer since Acid Rap dropped at the end of April, what's life been like?
Nate Fox: It's been a lot different, a lot different. Like, I don't feel any different but what I've been doing has definitely been different. It feels like a lot longer than what it's been just because its been so much compacted into such a short amount of time. You know, I was doing the construction thing. When Acid Rap dropped I was working construction in the middle of Pittsburgh, not even Pittsburgh but the middle of Pennsylvania, in the sticks. I think I left to go to LA to meet with labels and stuff in like June. And so from June until now, its been like a whirlwind of shit, like I just signed my pub deal with Disney like two or three weeks ago. I just got my check today, it came Fed Ex'ed to Pat (Corcoran)'s house today, but the ironic part is its Columbus Day and the banks are closed so I couldn't even do anything with it. So it was like ten years of waiting just to wait one more day (laughs).
Jake: Still, it always feels good to get that first check.
Nate Fox: Yeah, to get that first real check. I've gotten paid off music a whole bunch, but never to the point where I was like 'maybe I should start looking at places' you know what I mean?