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Chance the Rapper Says He’s Not Releasing a New Album This Week [UPDATE]

INDIO, CA - APRIL 15: Chance the Rapper performs onstage with Kehlani during the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Weekend 1 at the Empire Polo Field on April 15, 2018 in Indio, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella)

Chance the Rapper is planning to release a new album this week, according to a new interview with the Chicago Tribune‘s Greg Kot. He did not specify whether it would be released independently or as an exclusive on a streaming service.

Chance also said he’s beginning recording on a new album with Kanye West this week. Chance told the Tribune that he recently (“casually”) worked on two songs with the elder rapper at his current creative home base of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. (Chance told Complex last week that he would be working on an album with West this month, possibly another 7-song project in line with the recent string of G.O.O.D. Music releases.)

Chance also responded to questions about his attitude toward West’s Trump-sympathetic politics:

I think what Kanye has done successfully is speak his mind unapologetically, come under fire for it and bounce back in an awesome way. That is his dance that he has been doing forever. We had a little conversation about it and we don’t have the same politics, we’re not the same dude, we might disagree. I know the same thing goes for all black people — we’re not monolithic. Because of our disenfranchisement in this country it’s perceived that we have to serve one party, one movement, and that’s just not the way it is.

He also explained the logic behind his early public defense of West. In April, Chance tweeted “black people don’t have to be Democrats.”

“I responded the way I did because I was watching people go crazy on someone who is a mentor, a friend, an older brother,” Chance told the Tribune. “Plus, I understand as a Chicago resident about how fucked up all political parties are.”

Chance also detailed his attitude toward releasing his music for free, and the choice between working “independently” versus collaborating with streaming services like Apple Music. The service had exclusive rights to his last album, 2016’s Coloring Book, for the first two weeks it was out:

I’ve never been against selling music. Music has value. I put my music out there for free because I wanted people to see and notice it as a beacon for what I’m doing, in terms of how unorthodox I wanted my approach and my delivery of each piece of music to be. On the other side, it’s not really difficult for me to make music and deliver it to the fans, because there are so many more platforms now, a bunch of streaming sites. The bigger concern for artists now is navigating the legal issues of owning your music, your publishing, your distribution. It has been difficult for me to release music with artists who work with the majors. A lot of stuff I’ve worked on hasn’t come out since ‘Coloring Book’ because it’s hard.

This weekend, Chance is also hosting the Special Olympics 50th Anniversary concert on Chicago’s Northerly Island. Read the full Tribune feature here.

Update (7/17/18, 12:18 pm): Chance the Rapper tweeted today that the Tribune’s report of the time frame for the release of new music was incorrect. Perhaps he spoke prematurely. Something is still supposedly coming soon, though: