Chance the Rapper is coming to town, and he’s spreading holiday cheer!
The Chicago native’s commitment to the city that raised him continues through an initiative to increase mobility for youth in the Windy City.
“The mobility and independence that comes with having a bike is deep,” Chance told Blavity in a recent interview. “I very well remember my dad teaching me how to ride a bike, and how that grew into me being able to get to where I was trying to go, being able to ride around with the kids in the neighborhood. There’s a certain community that’s built around just having a bike, and it’s like this quintessential gift for Christmas, a coming of age thing that you see throughout movies and stuff.”
He added, “But, in reality, if you really think about it, in childhood, it’s hard to go a summer or Christmas without getting a bike, you feel me? And without having that way to connect with kids your age, or the ability to move where you want to go — there’s a certain independence and self-determination that comes with having a bike.”
This is the second year in a row that the Starline rapper has teamed up with Raising Cane’s through his SocialWorks organization to gift bicycles to Chicago children ahead of the holiday season.
“It always comes down to either two ways: either somebody finds us, or we find somebody that doesn’t necessarily know exactly how to invest in the community, but has the funds or resources that they want to redistribute,” he explained. “We partner with them in the spaces that need that help, or sometimes, in the case of Raising Cane’s, they do a lot of work around the nation in terms of giving back, and we always welcome those partnerships.”
“When I got to see how, like, these kids were not at all, you know, jaded or reserved when they got the bikes last year, they were really hyped, and damn near more hype than they were to meet me,” he recalled. “When you see that expression of gratitude, and that connecting moment for all those kids, it is really rewarding.”
Celebrating nearly 10 years of SocialWorks
In 2016, Chance launched SocialWorks as his personal continuation of standing on the shoulders of a long line of activists and community organizers. The goal is to inspire and empower youth through arts, education and civic engagement.
The bike giveaway is just one of the many initiatives that SocialWorks carries out year-round, along with programs like OpenMike, which, according to the website, is “a space for young creatives to share, express, and network with like-minded peers.”
Other programs include Kids of the Kingdom, “a faith-based, choice-based summer camp focused on performing and literary arts for 5-13 year olds,” or in other words, Vacation Bible School, Warmest Winter, and more.
“It’s become such a staple of Chicago,” he said while reflecting on nearly a decade of giving back through SocialWorks.
“I feel like I get more comments from people saying that somehow SocialWorks directly affected them or their family than I do people just asking for a picture or talking about music these days, which is, I think, the goal, and I’m really proud of all the different spaces that SocialWorks operates in now. We started with field trips, honestly, before we even got into the open mics.”
He added, “We collaborated with the Chicago Park Districts and a bunch of the artists that I grew up with in certain after-school programs — like Noname, Vic [Mensa], and other folks volunteered to add field trips to some of the Black and brown park districts in Chicago. And after that we started OpenMike, which was a continuation of the program that we was all in as shorties. That was the first time that we started using the name “SocialWorks.” We lowkey took a lot of steps; we were all like 22 when we started it. To have grown with this thing, and to see how many people it’s affected and how it’s matured us as I guess mentors and advocates is just a beautiful thing.”
The gift that keeps on giving
In 2016, Chance the Rapper joined forces with fellow Chicagoan Jeremih to debut Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama, a holiday mixtape that fans aren’t shy about playing to put them in the spirit.
He was in the studio working on more holiday tunes at the time of our interview. Still, he didn’t make any promises about when listeners can expect new Christmas music.
“I’ve been here since 8 a.m. working on Christmas songs,” he revealed. “It’s a thing where we get to this crunch time every year. The Christmas projects are really a collaborative thing between me and my very longtime friend Jeremih. We live in different cities, and we go through the year doing all this other stuff, and then it’s typically Jeremih, but sometimes I’m calling him. A few days before Thanksgiving, we call each other, and we just start laughing because we know one of us is saying, ‘Hey, let’s try and rush and get some Christmas songs done.’ It’s hard to explain, but it’s just something that we want to do, but the holidays are always busy. Maybe if we start in July, it’d be easier.”
Chance makes music that reflects the times, and his approach to Christmas music is no different.
“Whenever we make these holiday songs, obviously, Christmas is at the forefront, but Christmas means so many things that there’s so many different verticals that we can attack it from, so songs from the past deal with family, loss, nostalgia, romance and many other things,” he said. “ There’s all these different places to connect it to, and then it’s also because it’s the end of the year, there’s that transformative feeling of going into the new year, new me, that old meme of the girl walking up the steps. We’ve got four songs done right now. We don’t know exactly what we’re gonna do with them. This kind of happens all the time, then we end up pushing the stuff to next year. And then the next year, we’re like, ‘Let’s just make new stuff.”
He continued, “I don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen, but I gotta keep it honest with you, we are currently in the studio working on more Christmas songs.”
In the meantime, Chance the Rapper will help to ring in the New Year as the co-host of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2026, leading the first-ever Central Time Zone countdown for the show on ABC this Dec. 31 alongside Ryan Seacrest and various hosts across other cities.