Chance the Rapper was presented with his hometown of Chicago's "Outstanding Youth of the Year Award" by Mayor Rahm Emanuel yesterday. The rapper took to Instagram to call the honor "the most important award I will ever win."
According to the plaque, the award was presented to him for his "outstanding contributions to the youth of the state of Illinois. You have given yourself to the upward mobility of young people through the state of Illinois."
On Twitter, he said that it is "an honor to bear that weight."
Chicago has been making headlines and suffering from a momentum of gun violence. The city has even garnered nicknames such as "The Murder Capital" and "Chiraq."
Back in May, Chance helped promote his father's campaign #SaveChicago, which was a collaboration with other local community organizers to keep the streets of Chicago safe on Memorial Day this year. The city ultimately went 42 hours without a gun homicide, partly due to Chance's efforts.
In March, he appeared on the eight-part CNN series Chicagoland to talk about how the city's violence had affected him personally.
"There's a lot of Chicago influence that I put into the music-Soul, Jazz influence, Rock influence, House music-just a lot of sounds that stem from Chicago, the Chicago Hip Hop scene," he said. "It's very chill right now, especially in comparison to the way Chicago is."
He then spoke about his song "Paranoia," which was inspired by the shooting of his close friend Kevin Ambrose. He used the track to bring attention to the fact that kids are being murdered every day without the media really paying attention.
Last December, he appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show to talk about the epidemic saying, "I'm really hoping that gun-related death toll continues to lower. ...There's a positivity that's starting to go around in Chicago, and I think if we can keep it going and stop worrying about cliques and gangs, all of it."
Clearly, this is an issue that is close to Chance and his fight to end the violence has not gone unnoticed.
Chance and his backing back The Social Experiment are working on new music for their effort Surf, which they plan to drop for free by the end of the year.
