Chance the Rapper jumped on the rap scene back in April of 2012
after dropping his mixtape 10 Day, his first full length project following a 10 day suspension
from his high school for possession of marijuana. The mixtape would eventually lead to Complex
labeling him as one of the 10 New Chicago Rappers to Watch Out For and Forbes, who published
the mixtape in their Cheap Tunes Column. Since the release, Chance has gone on to release
a handful more mixtapes, collaborate with the likes of his idol Kanye West, Lil Wayne,
Dj Khaled, 2 Chainz, Childish Gambino, Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber to name a few. All
while still not being signed to a record label. And that’s because he doesn’t want to
sign just yet. He’s been offered deals from Sony, Top Dawg Entertainment, and Good Music,
which is run by his idol and Chicago Native Kanye West. However this hasn’t stopped
Chance from accumulating a net worth of approximately 33 Million which he’s earned from touring,
endorsements and having his music streamed. We’re here to tell you guys all about what
he spends his fortune on here for you on the Rich Life.
What’s going on guys, I’m your host Jarred Bronstein and today we’ll be looking at
what Chicago’s own Chance The Rapper spends his millions on, and how he made all that
chingo. We’ve done tons of videos on rappers in the past such as Lil Nas X, Nav and Travis
Scott. Be sure to subscribe so you guys don't miss out on a video and as always let us know
in the comments below who to cover next. Today our trivia question is what does the 3 on
Chance’s hat mean ? Find out at the end of this video but let’s roll that intro.
Chance the Rapper was born Chancellor Jonathan Bennett on April 16th, 1993 in Chicago, Illinois.
His father, Ken Williams-Bennett, worked with former Chicago mayor Harold Washington and
also served as Barack Obama's state director when the former President was a Senator in
Chicago. His mother, Lisa Bennett, worked for the Illinois Attorney General. Chance
would show his interest in music after listening to Michael Jackson on cassette tapes, but
his parent’s also influenced him at a young age, while they listened to the likes of Billie
Holiday, Sam Cooke and gospel genres. Chance would start listening to hip hop after hearing
Through the Wire, off of Kanye West’s debut album The College Dropout, on the radio. After
finding out the name of the song and the album, Chance went out and bought it, and to this
day he considers Kanye a huge influence on him, saying Kanye’s album inspired him to
start rapping.
After receiving a 10 day suspension for bringing some weed to his high school, Chance would
start working on a mixtape that would eventually be the birth of his debut tape, 10 Days. The
success of this tape would eventually lead to Chance making connections with people in
the Chicago music scene, which would eventually get Chance in touch with Childish Gambino,
who he would open for on Tour, as well as collaborate with. Chance would go on to release
the mixtape Acid Rap, which had features from the likes of Twista, Vic Mensa and Gambino
to name a few. It would also be nominated for Best Mixtape at the 2013 BET Hip Hop Awards
and be downloaded a total of 1.7 million times on the website datpiff, at the time of this
recording. Chance would also be a part of the XXL freshman list in 2014, alongside Ty
Dolla Sign, Rich Homie Quan and Kevin Gates, among others. If you want to hear more about
his come up, check out the before they were famous we did on him. Although it is a bit
old, so let us know if you’d like to see an updated version in the comments below.
Now it’s no secret that Chance the Rapper isn’t signed to any labels. He’s made
a point of becoming one of the biggest rappers on the scene to make a name for himself, all
while giving out his music for free. He’s made all of his money from tours, endorsement
deals, and the profits he gets from popular streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music,
as well as Youtube. In an interview with Vanity Fair back in 2017, Chance said “After I
made my second mixtape and gave it away online, my plan was to sign with a label and figure
out my music from there. But after meeting with the three major labels, I realized my
strength was being able to offer my best work to people without any limit
on it”
However when Chance released his biggest tape to date, Colouring Book, which had features
from the likes of Justin Bieber, Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz, T Pain, DRAM, Kanye West, and Young
Thug to name a few, Apple Music paid Chance $500,000 to stream the tape exclusively for
2 weeks. The tape would also win him the 2017 Grammy for Best Rap Album, beating out The
Life of Pablo by Kanye West and View by Drake, among others. On March 1st 2019, his mixtape
Colouring Book surpassed 1.5 billion streams on Spotify alone. According to CNBC, artists
make between 0.006 cents to 0.0084 cents per stream. If we go for the lower amount of 0.006
cents, multiplied by 1.5 billion, well that’s 9 million dollars from Spotify alone. Of course,
Chance does have an agent and a manager, but no record label he needs to give a percentage
too.
Chance was able to earn at least $500,000 in ticket sales per night when he toured back
in 2017 for his Be Encouraged Tour for majority of cities that showed the numbers. These cities
include Saint Paul, where he made approximately $815,000, Virginia Beach where he made $577,000
and Pittsburgh where he made just under $660,000. Chance also has partnered up with Joe Fresh
for the Thank You Obama Campaign and Dockers, although it’s unknown how much he was paid
for those partnerships.
Chance has also partnered with the likes of Kit Kat, Nike, H&M and of course, he teamed
up with his home town Chicago White Sox becoming the team’s ambassador. This lead to him
designing limited edition hats for the White Sox, which according to White Sox President,
sold out within minutes. Chance of course also sells his wildly popular 3 hat, as well
as clothing and vinyl versions of his past mixtapes. His debut album, titled Owbum, is
available for sale on his website for 20 bucks. He also recently added his first two mixtapes,
Acid Rap and 10 Day on streaming services, which were originally only available on soundcloud
and youtube. All of these sources of income have allowed Chance to reach a net worth of
approximately 33 million, and got him featured on Forbes 40 under 40 in 2017. So what does
he spend his fortune on? Well, according to NBC Chicago he bought a 4 million dollar condo
in Chicago, which is approximately 4,500 square feet and has a gym, spa room and two bed rooms,
among other amenities. Unlike most rappers, Chance doesn’t flaunt on his instagram with
cars, jewelry or stacks of cash. It seems a lot of his fortune goes to giving back to
his community.
Chance founded Social Works, a non profit organization which has a total of 5 initiatives.
Support CPS, which raises money for Chicago Public Schools, and raised 2.2 million dollars
for public schools in Chicago, on top of the million Chance personally donated. There’s
also My State of Mind, which which raises funds to increase accessibility to mental
health services, Chance also donated another million to that. He’s also got The Warmest
Winter, which operates clothing drives for the homeless, OpenMike, which supports young
artists in Chicago, and Kids of the Kingdom, which provides funding for educational summer
programs.
Aside from charities, Chance has also been involved in politics, endorsing and backing
politicians, such as mayoral candidate Amara Enyia (EN YAH), who he actually wrote a $400,000
cheque for. However after she would fall out of the race, Chance would then show his support
and endorse Toni Preckwinkle. He called her the most “qualified person in terms of somebody
that’s going to look out for all the people of Chicago. The person who’s going to account
for the police, for victims of gun crime, of economic crime, its Toni Preckwinkle. So
I’m fully behind her.” Although Chance said he has no more money for Chicago politics,
he did say he was going to pledge his time to campaign for Preckwinkle.
So unlike most rappers, it seems Chance spends majority of his fortune on his community and
the city that raised him. And he’s doing all of this as a solo artist. He’s received
a handful of offers from the likes of Good Music, which is Kanye’s label, Sony, and
Top Dawg Entertainment, which is home to the likes of Kendrick Lamar, but he’s decided
to stay the course and release music independently. Although he’s thought about signing with
labels in the past, it doesn’t seem like he’s going to anytime soon.
It is also fair to mention he recently got married to the mother of his two kids, Kirsten
Corley and although the exact details of how much the wedding cost were never revealed,
I can tell you right now it didn’t look very cheap. The wedding included a ton of
celebrity guests, including the likes of Kanye West, Kim Kardashian and Dave Chapelle. So
congrats to you and your wife Chance. Now to answer our trivia question, what does the
3 on Chance’s hat mean? Well in an interview with GQ Chance explained he wanted to switch
things up from the White Sox hat he’d always be wearing showing love to his home town.
So he decided on the 3 because at the time his third mixtape was going to drop. However,
since the decision he told GQ “I’ve rationalized it to myself that it stands for
the third mixtape, the Holy Trinity, and the three-pronged family of myself, my daughter,
and my girl” And that’s all for this one guys. I’ve been your host Jarred
Bronstein, drop a comment below with who you’d like us to cover next or feel free to shoot
me some DM’s on twitter or instagram @bronst7. We’ll see you in the next one.