Chance The Rapper Launches the Warmest Winter Initiative

Chance The Rapper is launching a new initiative to help the homeless in his hometown of Chicago. Chance The Rapper appeared on Chicago radio station WGCI's Chicago Morning Takeover and announced the "Warmest Winter" initiative. The campaign looks to raise $100,000 to provide 1,000 coats to Chicago's homeless population. The fundraising is being done through the crowdsourcing site CrowdRise.com.

It's an admirable endeavor for an artist who has experienced so much success in 2015. Chance released the Surf album with Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment earlier this year, was named the Chicagoan of the Year and became the first independent artist to perform on Saturday Night Live. But the Chicago MC is looking to use his growing recognition to do something good for his hometown.

During the interview with WGCI, Chance also touched on his recent back and forth with director Spike Lee over the new film Chi-Raq. Chance responded to Lee's claims that Chance's criticisms were disingenuous because Chance's father worked for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

"I mean, Spike Lee is saying that 'cause he's promoting a movie," Chance said. "He's trying to make more money. He got his little 15 million from Amazon and his other little bread from Lionsgate and made a movie that was not about Chicago but, you know what I'm saying, manipulated and used Chicago actors and Chicago scenery to push this movie."

Chance reiterated his major problem with the movie and why he had a problem with Chicago as the setting for it.

"It was an oversimplification of a bigger problem," Chance said. "[Lee] wasn't really focusing on the issues of Chicago. It wasn't really about Chicago. To me, it was about this age-old conversation of black on black violence, which is to me some Bill Cosby 'pull up your pants' stuff. I’m just not for it. I was trying to explain to people outside of Chicago that it was marketed to that this isn't a representation of us and we're not rocking with it."

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