I was watching the new Chance the Rapper performance  of “Angels” featuring Saba on Stephen Colbert’s late night show. I’ve been writing a lot about alternative rappers like Kendrick Lamar, who have been struggling with the radio audience. Since Chance is also an alternative act, I was shocked to see him promoting radio. This is especially true considering its a platform artists like him have struggled on in recent years.

 I don’t think this is a good direction for Chance. He worked the lyrics of the track he performed into support for radio stations with complimentary visual gimmicks. Although the performance was creative and well executed, I’m going to explain why Chance the Rapper should not be promoting local radio anymore.

Chance was directly promoting 107.5 and Power 92. These are two radio stations from his home city of Chicago. I understand that Chance might hold sentimental value towards these stations.  Sadly, these stations don’t seem to share the same feelings towards Chance. A quick look at the both the 107.5 and the Power 92 site reveal that neither station had any mention of his performance(at all). Additionally, neither station seems to have any of  Chance The Rapper tracks in rotation.  

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Instead of talking about Chance and  Saba, who were promoting the stations in their performance. The news section of both radio stations websites were filled with the ‘Usual Suspects’. The Weekend, Future, Fetty Wap, Meek Mill and Drake dominate everything, including the music in rotation(radio). This is not limited to just Chance. Chicago has huge alternative hip-hop acts such as Vic Mensa and Lupe Fiasco. Unfortunately they also failed to get any radio play for their last projects. This supports the trend of alternative hip-hop leaving radio.

I once saw an interview with Childish Gambino on Power 105.1 where Childish Gambino spoke on Chance The Rapper. He said ‘Chance has a problem with wearing things that make other people money without getting anything back in return’. I agree with Childish Gambino on this point, and unfortunately I think this performance is another example of Chance doing exactly that (example the Stephen Colbert’s late night show performance mentioned previously) . Unless these radio stations are paying Chance (this seems unlikely), he is gaining minor L‘s on his record.

Chance is losing on every level by promoting radio in his valuable late night performance Slots. Radio is not a viable platform for discovering alternative hip-hop (this makes his late night slot even more valuable). Late night television  is a rare opportunity for Chance to reach a larger, more general audience. So Chance needs to correct this problem or risk hurting himself in the long run.

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