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Chance The Rapper In Concert

Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty

Last Thursday (April 30), Chance The Rapper lectured at Harvard University’s Hiphop Archive & Research Institute. During the conversation with students, Chance touched upon a variety of topics including, Jay Z’s TIDAL, the recent unrest in Baltimore, Kanye West and more.

The good folks over at FADER caught parts of the Q&A and have transcribed some of Chance’s words of wisdom.

First off, the Chicago rapper offered his thoughts on Jay Z’s new music streaming service, TIDAL.

“So the Tidal formula is awesome if it actually works out,” he says. “It’s a direct fan-to-artist or fan-to-supplier type of connection, but it’s not really working that way yet. Everybody that was on the stage was like signed to a label and shit. At the end of the day, all these streaming services are whack as fuck.”

Moving on to a more serious note, Chance opened up about the current unrest in the city of Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray.

“I think it’s really most important for everybody to be informed, to be connected to the situation,” he says. “I always say like there’s an act—when to be a hand or to be a voice. You gotta know when your Twitter is stronger or your body actually marches. Sometimes it’s either/or, you know? But I don’t want to dance around saying this shit is wrong. I think we all know that. It’s very hard to watch it happening on a loop.”

While offering his opinion on the often-controversial Kanye West, Chance The Rapper says he houses nothing but respect for Yeezy.

“Every time he speaks, it’s all on purpose,” Chance says of Kanye West. “I’m very selective about words when I’m writing music, but when I’m just talking, I might say some outlandish shit. Everything he says is on purpose and very calculated, and he feels exactly how he feels. I played like seven shows with him last year but didn’t meet him at any of the shows. That shit gets locked down after the show because he’s married to the president or something. This one time, Jaden Smith hooked me up and introduced me to Kanye. He’s never speaking for someone else. He’s just giving you his straight up ideas and his feelings on how the world works and how it should work. I just respect the fuck out of him, and I respect him much more after sitting with him in a room with no one watching and no cameras on and him being like, ‘I care this much about how the world works and how your shit goes and I’m going to give you a full blown lecture, really loud, about how this shit works.’ And I was like ‘yeah, for sure.’”

To read the rest of Chance The Rapper lecture during his visit to Harvard University, please visit FADER.

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Check Out The Best Lessons From Chance The Rapper’s Harvard Lecture  was originally published on theurbandaily.com