Chance the Rapper is already giving millions to prop up Chicago’s bankrupt public education system, but his fans want the hip-hop artist to take his civic action one step further and challenge Rahm Emanuel in the 2019 mayoral race.
A site, billing itself as the “#Chano4Mayor” pressure committee launched this week, urging the Coloring Book rapper, who has been at odds with Chicago city government over its lack of attention to Chicago Public Schools, to throw his snapback hat in the ring.
“Hey Chance, We think you’d be a great mayor. We love your music—we’ve been following your career from the first 10 days. We also love the work you’ve done to give back to the city that raised you,” the site says in its “about us” segment. “You represent Chicago on the world stage and you do us proud…We think if you ran, you would win. And if you won, you would do a good ass job.”
The site also has a laundry list of things Chance’s “fans” claim Mayor Emanuel has done wrong, including closing public schools and mental health clinics, and failing to address what they claim are rampant civil rights violations by police.
The site is even replete with adorable cartoon Chances, giving sage advice on the state of things in the Windy City.
But while music sites and Chance fans are celebrating, its fairly clear the site itself has an alternate agenda. Included in the Chance pressure is a draft of his mayoral platform, suggesting that the hip-hop artist champion “reinvestment” into Chicago’s school system and a “solution” to Chicago’s violence problems that miraculously doesn’t involve police or prisons.
That sounds eerily like the progressive campaigns that have challenged Emanuel in the past, from the left. It’s probably no surprise, then, that some of the people behind the site have a history of working with social justice-themed projects.
If Chance does run—and for now, he hasn’t commented—he’ll have quite the slog. Although he’s already given $2 million to CPS, the money problem is so bad, that his gift barely covers the lifetime payout of one single teacher’s pension. And Emanuel is so desperate to curb Chicago’s violence, he’s gone to President Trump for help.
Chance will also be running against his dad’s former boss. Chance’s father, Kenneth, was a top aide to Emanuel when he first became mayor.