Chance the Rapper graces the cover of the current Grammy Preview issue of Billboard magazine alongside fellow best new artist hopefuls Maren Morris and Alessia Cara, and spoke to Billboard senior editor Frank DiGiacomo about everything from his vote for the next president of the United States (“Hillary Clinton, by far”) to the artist who gave him the best advice (a tie between Donald Glover and Jill Scott) to what he’ll wear to the Grammys if nominated (a suit).
In the course of the conversation, Chance also spoke about his collaborations with Kanye West. The two have worked together twice in the past: Chance with a show-stopping guest verse on Kanye’s Life of Pablo opener “Ultralight Beam”; and West contributing vocals to the celebratory opening track “All We Got” from Chance’s latest release Coloring Book. But that’s not all the two have in store; the rumored joint Chance-‘Ye project Good Ass Job is still a possibility, the young MC said.
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“We were working a while ago — I came to his spot probably the day before me and the band [The Social Experiment] released Surf in 2015 — and we had a long sit-down and talk and he did some narration for [Surf] that we decided not to use but was so dope,” Chance said. “And after that, the next time we met up I was starting my Coloring Book project and we talked about collabing, and I brought up Good Ass Job to him. And, you know, we talked about it, and during Coloring Book we worked on a few songs that didn’t make it on the project. And there’s one that I will say is very crucial. It’s a very dark cut and it’s me and ’Ye and Francis and the Lights. It’s very bare roots with bass and very dark.”
For now, the track is not scheduled for any particular project — not any particular release from West, at least. “I have no idea the timeline of Kanye albums,” he said, suggesting he has no behind-the-scenes intel on what West has in the pipeline. “Kanye, from what I’ve heard from the media, he has a Turbo Grafx album, right? He has a Drake album, and he has Cruel Winter. What I’m talking about is something me and Kanye talked about in the studio and worked on as a skeletal track, you know?
“It could only be for Good Ass Job,” Chance continued. “It definitely is not for any of those three albums that I just talked about.”
Chance also mentioned a small amount of fatherhood advice that Kanye passed along: “Just manage my time well and have fun. That’s really it. We don’t talk too much about fatherhood in all honesty.”
And while the Grammys are still months away — nominations will be announced Dec. 6, with the ceremony set for Feb. 12 — Billboard asked him where he might put his statue if he won an award. “That’s a good question,” he said. “Probably on top of the fridge. I’m one of those magnet dads, so I have pictures of me and my kid and pictures of my girl’s family and my family all over the fridge, and the stuff on top of the fridge is pretty important.”