Chance The Rapper Reveals Kanye West Didn’t Want Him to Rap Certain Lyrics on ‘Ultralight Beam’
Chance The Rapper's presence on Kanye West's "Ultralight Beam" was pretty exemplary, but Chance recently revealed that ’Ye wasn't initially fond of one of the bars Chano delivered on The Life of Pablo track.
In honor of the fifth anniversary of Chance The Rapper's 2016 Coloring Book mixtape, he spoke with Brenton Blanchet for the Recording Academy via Grammy.com and explained that Kanye wasn't in favor of the Chicago rhymer's Grammy reference.
"I made 'Sunday Candy'/I'm never going to hell/I met Kanye West, I'm never going to fail/He said, 'Let's do a good-ass job with Chance 3'/I hear you gotta sell it to snatch the Grammy," Chance raps towards the end of his verse.
"I rapped on Kanye's shit right before it came out that I was working on these three Grammys, and I was like, 'If I keep rapping like that, and just saying shit's gonna happen, that's just gonna happen,'" Chance The Rapper told Blanchet. "And it started happening."
He continued: "Kanye didn't want me to say that [line] on that song. And I had to go back-and-forth with him about keeping my line on there. That whole experience of working on [Pablo] was very transformative for a lot of people around me, because I was 40 [percent] of the way done with Coloring Book. I was listening to a lot of gospel [then]. So, when I came to the camp, any time I got the aux cord, I was playing Fred Hammond or talking about something I read in the Bible. It was a different vibe than what Kanye had hit me up for because I was coming off the heels of Acid Rap. So, I had this different vibe and energy, and it was very well-received."
Chano went on to say, "Kanye was like, 'I wanna have more gospel [moments] on this album,' and people eventually started calling it a gospel album. Just being in a position to rap [with] the person who probably is the reason I became a rapper—to be able to produce and write and to be featured on the intro, the first real rap verse you hear on the album, was crazy to me."
Chance The Rapper also shared that he had manifested the day he'd collaborate with Yeezy. "I was, at that time, speaking it into existence like, 'Kanye gonna hit us up soon. You gonna be working with ’Ye soon,'" he expressed. "And when that happened, I had to keep doing that. I had to keep being like, 'I'm gonna just say what's gonna happen.'"
After talking that Grammy talk on wax in 2016, Chance The Rapper took home three of the coveted awards at the 2017 Grammy Awards. Chance won Best New Artist, Best Rap Performance for "No Problem" and Best Rap Album for Coloring Book, making him the first streaming-only rhymer to take home the nod for Best Rap Album.
Musically and culturally, "Ultralight Beam" was a win for Kanye West, Chance The Rapper and all other artists and producers involved. Maybe ’Ye and Chano will do it again as rumors claim that Chance could appear on Kanye's long-awaited Donda album, which according to Apple Music, has a new release date set for Friday (Aug. 20).
In case a refresher is needed, check out Kanye West's "Ultralight Beam" below.