The Recording Academy announced the nominees for next year’s Grammys on Tuesday, and Chance the Rapper racked up seven nominations—including Best Rap Album for May’s Coloring Book. It’s hardly unprecedented for Chicago rappers to get a little extra love at Grammy time—Kanye received eight nominations this year—but there is something new about the Coloring Book nod. It’s the first streaming-only release to be nominated, a milestone made possible by an Academy rule change in June that granted such albums eligibility. (Bill Freimuth, the Academy’s Vice President of Awards, told Billboard in October that the change wasn’t in response to Coloring Book and had been in the works for months.) Tuesday night Metro hosted an invite-only party to celebrate Chance’s nominations, and when the man of the hour finally arrived onstage with a bottle of what appeared to be champagne tucked under his arm, he still looked surprised by the news. “I don’t know—Coloring Book, that shit was a mixtape,” he said.
Community is something I always return to when I think about Chance the Rapper. When CBS 2 reporter Vince Gerasole interviewed me about Chance’s Grammy nominations, I talked about his continued involvement in the community—something I’d had a fresh opportunity to see for myself just the day before. On Monday evening I went to the Harold Washington Library with freelance journalist Tara Mahadevan to see the 18th installment of Open Mike, an ongoing multidisciplinary series that Chance cohosts for teenage performers eager to show their craft to their peers. “Me and a good friend of mine, Malcolm London, put together this event two years ago,” Chance told the audience. “It all started with a sense of community and how important that is in becoming a creative.”
