Last night, GRAMMY-winning Chicago hip hop artisan Chance The Rapper joined Stephen Colbert on The Late Show as the evening’s musical guest. For the national TV appearance, Chance decided to opt against his original song choice at the last minute and go with a band new, unheard track instead. As he explained to Colbert before his performance, “I was gonna [perform] ‘Grown Ass Kid,’ an unreleased song from Coloring Book, and then I called on Saturday and said, I can’t do ‘Grown Ass Kid’ anymore for reasons I don’t want to talk about. We had to come up with a song in a matter of days, and I wanted to do something fresh. I’ve been in the studio a lot lately; I’ve been cooking up some yammers. I premiered ‘Angels,’ the first new song off Coloring Book, here, so I was like, why not do another new song for you guys here tonight?”
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The new song, whose title was not indicated during its debut performance, continued the gospel and jazz influences that permeated his award-winning smash hit 2016 album, Coloring Book. Hewing closer to the mindful spoken-word poetry he showed off during his recent NPR Tiny Desk Concert than to the hip-hop bangers he originally made his name on, the song features three verses of nostalgic rhymes delivered in his signature rasp over a finger-picked jazz guitar line. Crooner-guitarist Daniel Caeser took vocal duties for the performance, helping to lend the song an earnest R&B sensibility as the rest of Chance’s 7-piece backing provided harmonious sonic texture.
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Watch Chance The Rapper debut a new, as-of-yet untitled song on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert below via the Late Show’s YouTube page:
For more information on Chance The Rapper’s various upcoming projects and performances, head to his website.