There's Now a Campaign for Chance the Rapper to Become Mayor of Chicago

A group of Chance the Rapper fans want to draft him to run for mayor of Chicago.

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Complex Original

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On Sunday a group of very optimistic Chance the Rapper fans, perhaps inspired by listening to "Somewhere in Paradise" on repeat, launched a website urging Chance to challenge Rahm Emanuel and run for the mayor's office in Chicago in 2019. Perhaps worth noting is that Chance's father, Ken Bennett, very recently worked as the deputy chief of staff for Emanuel.

That website chano4mayor.com not so subtly borrows a line from the aforementioned song and posts it on the intro to their site. You know, the one where he says “They say I’m savin’ my city, say I’m stayin’ for good. They screamin’ Chano for mayor, I’m thinkin’ maybe I should.” They also launched an accompanying Twitter account, which is about as grassroots as it can get at the moment with just 65 followers.

"Hey Chance, We think you’d be a great mayor," said the creators of the site, which actually isn't bad. "You represent Chicago on the world stage, and you do us proud."

The page's creators also spoke to the Sun-Times. "We would be very happy if he ran," Bea Malsky, a writer who was involved with the project, told the paper. She added that even if Chance wasn't going to run, "[w]e would be very happy if he’d become more politically involved and he endorsed a candidate who stands up for the same things that he stands up for in his music."

Malsky said she and a trio of friends had been putting in work on the website for weeks, even before Chance's latest charitable donations. In recent months the 23-year-old Windy City native has advocated for the city's residents, especially its youth. He met with the Illinois Governor (although that didn't appear to go well), he donated more than $1 million to Chicago public schools, and he also launched an arts and literature fund.

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