What Are the Chances?

A Prison Chaplain’s Reflection on How Chance the Rapper Found the Freedom to Feel and the Power to Change.

Last week, I turned 53 years old. At 53, my “bucket list” of things I want to experience before I die has taken on a new sense of joyful urgency. On that list was seeing Chance the Rapper live in concert. I am incredibly grateful to my best friend, who blessed me with this opportunity for my birthday.

And so, on Saturday, I found myself in the middle of 7,000 other humans. We all jumped to our favorite Chance songs, like Blessings, and joined together in a buoyant rendition of “Happy Birthday” for Chance’s 10-year-old daughter, Marley. As we sang, Marley stared out at the hyped crowd while she clung to her father’s leg. In that moment, I found myself thinking, What are the chances that Chance chose to create change?

I became intensely curious about what led this young man from the South Side of Chicago to become one of the most revered and talented artists in the world. And what in the world led Chance the Rapper to be so utterly committed to his personal integrity that he has never traded his values for a label?

Before Chance was Chance the Rapper, the Recording Academy required music to be sold commercially to be eligible for a Grammy. Chance’s massive public pressure campaign forced them to change the rules. Consequently, in 2017, Chance the Rapper won Best New Artist. What are the chances that this young man from the South Side of Chicago could create that kind of change in the world just by being Chance?

If you too are a Chance fan, then you know that his music is as unrestricted as his brand. His fans are diverse in age, race, and economic status, and we are global. The crowd I danced with last week was there for different reasons. Some of us were Kingdom People, there to get down to Chance’s long list of gospel-inspired songs, such as How Great. Yet, those same folks raised their arms for his loving tribute to his mother, warning to his brothers, and well… a shout out to weed, in the song Tree.

The capacity to hold this kind of duality with integrity is uncommon. I am not saying Chance is the only artist who does so; I am just saying the chances that he would, given where he came from, who people thought he should be, and the societal pressures to conform make the likelihood of holding that kind of complex duality with integrity slim-to-none.

As a prison chaplain and a mental health therapist, I am deeply intrigued by what allows humans to live their lives with integrity, finding security in self-leadership, rather than security in conformity. I want to know how we find purpose, meaning, and belonging through connections within community. Chance the Rapper is not just a Grammy Award-winning rapper; he is an example of how humans thrive in the midst of struggle, poverty, racism, violence and high pressures to conform. That makes the researcher part of me light up. What were the conditions of his life that fostered the capacity to fuel a life full of meaning, purpose, and belonging lived with integrity?

In the book Permission to Feel, Dr. Marc Brackett highlights how modern society systematically trains people to suppress their feelings, leading to an epidemic of anxiety, burnout, and mental numbness. Dr. Brackett gives the reader a path to reclaiming the capacity to feel in order to live a life worth living. His thesis, in part, is that when humans have permission to feel our feelings without shame or judgment, we live in a space where healing and performance can coexist. This means we can truly be who we are, offering the unique gifts God gave us to the world. We can do that with integrity, not seeking only approval or success, but seeking meaning, purpose, and belonging.

Dr. Brackett suggests that to have permission to feel, we must experience an authentic invitation from someone we trust to express our feelings, desires, and fears without judgment. For Chance the Rapper, that person was Brother Mike (Mike Hawkins). As a teenager in Chicago, Chance met Brother Mike at the Harold Washington Library’s YOUmedia space, a digital media space for youth.

In that space, Brother Mike did way more than help teens make music. He created an environment entirely free of judgment where young Black creatives could map out their anxieties, grief, and hope through poetry and hip-hop. Brother Mike gave Chance permission to feel. Chance then took those feelings and created music that gives others permission to feel without judgment. In doing so, he created a life worth living for himself, his daughters, his family, and his friends. And for the global community of Chance The Rapper fans.

What are the chances? The truth is, it wasn’t a chance—it was a strategy. It was a strategy created by Brother Mike that emerged from his own life experience and his ability to live with integrity and authenticity.

I wonder, who gave Brother Mike the permission to feel?

We all need places entirely free of judgment, where we can express our feelings without fear of rejection, shame, or blame. We all need to be invited into those spaces, not only as children or teens, but throughout our whole lives. Then, we need to turn around and invite the next person, and the person after that, and so on… until everyone we know has received this radical and holy invitation to feel.

Then, the blessings will fall in our lap.

*For a deeper dive into how Brother Mike gave Chance permission to feel, and how that judgement free space has created some of the best rappers out of Chicago I encourage you to listen to the first episode of the Vic Mensa podcast here.