In 2014, after the success of Acid Rap, Chance The Rapper made the move from Chicago to Los Angeles. In a new GQ profile, Chance says that he signed a lease on a house in North Hollywood with James Blake, where artists like BJ The Chicago Kid, J. Cole, and Frank Ocean hung out. “It was like a big-ass rapper mansion," Chance said.
The mansion was mentioned inThe FADER's cover story of the rapper in 2015, "[Chance] and Blake even announced plans to move into a house and record a collaborative album, though this fizzled out at the last moment for reasons Chance himself seems unclear about."
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According to a statement from James Blake, it appears the reason is that Blake never really knew about this house or his ownership of it.
“We’d very loosely and playfully daydreamed about getting somewhere to live/work for a little while, but never discussed specifics. We wanted to work together on something, so Chance invited me to the house he said he’d rented for him and his friends....I turned up and he told me my name was on the lease, which was creepy because I’d never signed anything. I’d never and still have never heard of Koi Kastle, had never seen a picture of the home and had never been to or known the existence of the area it was in. Then he went on MTV and said we were living together, and so to this day many people still think we are.”
Regardless of who ended up owning the house and why, there were some good times in that place. Chance recounted the story of one special evening soundtracked by Frank Ocean.
“I was on a date one time at the crib, and we're sitting in the front room, maybe rolling up some weed or something.” Frank Ocean was downstairs, somewhere. “And then Frank just comes up and starts playing the piano and lightly singing in the background of our date. Obviously, that scored me a lot of points with this female.”
For all the wonderful trappings of Hollywood, Chance says in the profile that he knew he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He also apparently developed some problems with pills.
“I was just fucking tweaking. I was a Xan-zombie, fucking not doing anything productive and just going through relationship after relationship after relationship. Mind you, this is six months. So think about, like, how could you even do that?”
Eventually, he made his way back to Chicago and got back with his girlfriend. When they had a daughter together, Chance got back his relationship with god.“I think it was the baby that, you know, brought my faith back,” he said.
Read the rest of the piece here.
