Watch Chance The Rapper cover Stevie Wonder at NPR Music’s Tiny Desk
Imagine how good a Chance The Rapper Tiny Desk performance would be. Now multiply that goodness by at least ten, and that’ll give you the performance’s true value. Chance stopped by the NPR Music offices last month and took the acoustic session series to places it hadn’t seen before. His quick set, out on NPR Music’s site Wednesday, consisted of one tune from his world-dominating 2016 release Coloring Book, one poem he wrote on his way to the office that day and one Stevie Wonder cover.
Chance and his crew got started with “Juke Jam,” and even though Justin Bieber and Towkio weren’t around like the song’s studio version, the Social Experiment and accompanying musicians were more than sufficient. Altogether, Chance brought along a trumpeter, drummer, keyboardist and four backup vocalists. That’s a crowd for the Tiny Desk, which Chance admitted he didn’t realize is in an actual office, but it worked just fine.
Next came a poem from Chance, entitled “The Other Side.” He gets interrupted by the office intercom system and starts over, but it supplies a good laugh. And finally, a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “They Won’t Go When I Go” to close it all out.
If you’ve got any post-holiday weekend blues, you don’t anymore. Watch Chance’s Tiny Desk session below.