ESSENCE Holiday Celebration Of Joy: Chance The Rapper On Being A Girl Dad And Why ‘This Christmas’ Is A Classic Film

When temperatures dip, and the sun sets sooner, you need something to look forward to. Perhaps that’s why we lean into the holiday spirit so much. Quality time with loved ones, decorating your home with lights and small trinkets, and snuggling on the couch watching a classic film that puts you in all the feels; those are only some of the small joys of the season.

Another joy to look forward to is our 2025 ESSENCE Holiday Celebration of Joy event, which will be available to watch on Thanksgiving. The holiday special is a tremendous showcase of Black excellence, which includes a performance from Chance the Rapper. With the promotion and release of his recent album Star Line, which is receiving widespread acclaim, the star is looking forward to enjoying some much-needed family time this season, specifically with his daughters Kensli and Marli.

We connected with the Chicago native to learn more about his latest album, his holiday favorites, Christmas plans for his little girls, and what viewers can expect from ESSENCE Holiday Celebration of Joy.

ESSENCE: What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?

Chance the Rapper: Whenever I think of the holidays, I think of reuniting with a lot of people. In Chicago, growing up, everybody would go away for school or get jobs in other places. So Christmas and Thanksgiving are when you see everybody you know you ain’t seen in years, or haven’t seen all year. Living in Chicago my whole life, you can still go to the same place you used to go to and link and go eat. Or you can still go to your friend’s parents’ houses or have Friendsgivings and stuff like that.

I really like that it’s so focused on family and community. I feel like a lot of times, it’s a trope that we only get together for funerals and weddings. So, stuff like this, Thanksgiving, I think of like a family reunion.

How do you try to make the holidays special for your girls? Are there any holiday traditions yet?

This is our first time doing this, but we’re going to Orlando. We’re going to a theme park with my brother, his kids, my mama, and my kids. Typically, every year we would go to my aunt’s house, my grandmother’s younger sister’s crib. It was like the big house we all went to after church or on holidays. So, we’ve done that in past years, but I think the main thing is just being together.

So this is our first time not being in Chicago, outside of going to DC for their [the girls’] mom’s side of the family. It’s also our first time going to a resort and being somewhere warm during Thanksgiving. So, this might end up becoming a tradition.

What is something you really enjoyed about the Celebration of Joy event?

Honestly, the rehearsals were really fun. When you produce specials like this, there’s not a lot of room for tweaks or improvisation. But the ESSENCE team, the choreographers, the choir director, and everybody were very open to suggestions. We ended up reworking the song a few times in rehearsal unti we came up with a whole new arrangement for the ending. For me, that’s what live performances are all about: changing the record a little while keeping the essence and the main spirit of the song.

So we did a song from one of my Christmas projects, Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama, called “Family For.” I had never performed that song on a stage. With the choir and being able to improvise a little, that was my favorite part of performing.

What should our readers/followers look forward to experiencing when they tune into the holiday special?

They should look to be surprised. I think it is very Black. It is very ESSENCE. It is very holiday-centered. There’s a bit of worship in there from some of the other performances that I’ve seen, which is always good. But yeah, they should expect a good time, beautiful voices, and some surprises.

While you have a worldwide sound, I appreciate that your music has intentionally been rooted in Chicago and your life experiences. How has being a girl dad helped you become a better artist over time?

I learned a lot more about love, unconditional love, prioritizing the important things in life, and what I want to say and get across. I think it just made me a more responsible writer and artist. Music is, not to sound corny at all, like one of the most powerful things in the world; and definitely to me, the most powerful art form. When music is done right and with intention, it can be extremely powerful. And so as all art can.

In this recent project, you poured your love for art and culture into it. What about yourself, that a lot of people may not know about, can fans learn about you in Star Line or future projects to get to know the real Chance?

I think it’s a deeply personal project. There are many parts of it that look outward toward the world and analyze the systems we live in. But also, there’s a lot of my personal history, my family history, the way that I deal with different emotions. I think all of my projects are like tell-all books. In that one, it’s written in prose and in poetic form, but it’s a pure documentation of my life at any given time.

If you could choose a go-to holiday movie, what would it be and why?

I don’t think that we talk about This Christmas enough.

Chris Brown, Columbus Short, Regina King. Loretta DeVine. A lot of our great actors and actresses are in there. It’s a little bit of drama in the movie, but it’s not like a trauma movie. It’s just a straight Black holiday film. When I was a kid, I loved that movie. And I still watch it around the holidays. There are still obviously other classics like Jim Carrey’s Grinch and Home Alone 2, and stuff like that.

When are you putting up the Christmas tree? Is it before or after Thanksgiving?

Oh, my tree’s already up. My tree’s been up for a couple of days. We haven’t decorated it yet. But the tree is up. And we’ll probably decorate it this weekend. And then we’ll take it down, not too late, probably by early April. [laughs] You know, you gotta let it marinate.

What is a guilty-pleasure holiday meal?

Nobody’s going to want to hear this, but I’m going to say it anyway. One of my guilty pleasures is the day after Thanksgiving, when everybody’s getting into the leftovers, I leave, and I go get McDonald’s.

I’m not a leftover person. I recognize the poetic beauty of leftovers. It means you have an abundance of food that is so good that there are leftovers the next day, and you still want to get into it all. I recognize that. But there’s something about capitalism that makes you want to go out the next day and be a consumer and go get it [laughs]. I remember trying to stuff the bag to the bottom of the trash can or eating it in my car. But it’s a tradition for me.

The ESSENCE Holiday Celebration of Joy premieres Thursday, November 27th, at 7 p.m. EST, on YouTube and ESSENCE.com.

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