With new innovations in technology and the evolution of social media, it takes nothing more than a few clicks to appear in the inbox or feed of your favorite industry professional, activist, athlete or celebrity.
Chance The Rapper knows this better than anyone. His entire career has been built on digital grinding.
Chance is also a big fan of giving back, and making opportunities. He's donated a lot of money towards arts education, and even gave Chicago's students a chance to direct one of his music videos.
A few months ago, the Chicago rapper decided to get into the professional development game.
I'm looking for an intern, someone with experience in putting together decks and writing proposals
— Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) March 27, 2017
The reactions piled up, with fans submitting their resumes with fingers crossed, hoping that they could earn the position of a lifetime.
Some even got creative, thinking that it would take more than a simple resume to get the attention of the very unorthodox performer.
They were right.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Chance has now found his intern in 22-year-old Negele Hospedales from Victoria, Canada.
When Hospedales, who was bartending in Sydney, Australia at the time, heard about the internship opportunity, he knew this was made for him. He was more than just a fan of Chance's music; he'd written essays about the artist in college.
Rather than submit a normal cover letter and resume, Hospedales created a website called ChanceHireHospey.com, which had a tour theme. Hospedales billed himself as the headlining artist of "The Cover Letter Tour."
How clever is that?
In his cover letter, Hospedales was forthcoming about his flaws as well as his strengths.
"I graduated in December at 21 years old with a sub-par GPA and goals that no piece of paper would help me achieve," he wrote, going on to detail his social media expertise and his penchant for taking risks.
The cover letter eventually became more of a personal essay, with the now-intern writing, that he was "following the teachings of my favorite artist" in everything he did, from launching a music website to going to Australia.
He spoke of his passion for writing about and sharing hip-hop culture, and how he built a successful underground culture website by "staying completely independent: no advertisements, no paid song releases or commissioned posts. Everything self-funded through clothing sales or student loans, because to us the impact that we could have on the culture was more important than anything else."
In a piece he wrote for his website, Hospey How To, Hospedales describes the beginning of his new internship with the South Side rapper.
"The first few weeks will be blurry, abstract, and smoked out. Every experience eye opening; some burdening, most reddening. The hotel rooms are bigger than your future. Every time someone asks you 'So … I know you’re the intern, but what do you actually do here?' you become less sure of yourself."
It wasn't long, though, before the team and Chance himself made Hospedales feel right at home.
With skills such as writer, website designer, and music enthusiast under his belt, Hospedales can now add another tremendous role to his resume: Chance The Rapper's intern.
Congratulations to Negele Hospedales on this major move, and we wish him lots of continued success!
