My personal life coach, Chance the Rapper, is continuing with his promise to Chicago that he is there to make a change.
He announced the deal to buy Chicagoist, a local news site covering the Windy City, in one of his four new tracks released at midnight ET Wednesday. In the song, “I Might Need Security,” he explains why.
“I bought the Chicagoist just to run you racist bitches outta business,” Chance says in the song, which includes a backing-vocal loop throughout that repeats “f— you.”
Chicagoist.com has been dormant since November 2017, when owner Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade, summarily shut down the site along with Gothamist, DNAinfo and others. That came after the sites’ staffers voted to join the Writers Guild of America East as their collective-bargaining rep.
In a statement, Chance the Rapper said, “I’m extremely excited to be continuing the work of the Chicagoist, an integral local platform for Chicago news, events and entertainment… I look forward to relaunching it and bringing the people of Chicago an independent media outlet focused on amplifying diverse voices and content.”
Chance the Rapper acquired Chicagoist from New York Public Radio’s WNYC, through the artist’s newly formed Social Media LLC, which aims to promote local investigative journalism, diversity, and representation for people of color in media. Terms of the deal for Chicagoist weren’t disclosed.
The 25-year-old rapper-songwriter-actor-producer, born Chancelor Bennett, hails from Chicago’s West Chatham neighborhood.