Critical accolades, commercial success, a popular grass-roots campaign to draft him for mayor … Chance the Rapper pretty much has it all.
But according to Spin magazine, the socially conscious 24-year-old South Sider is a little thin-skinned.
Internal memos Spin obtained from MTV suggest that Chance’s management threatened in October that Chance “was never working again” with the network after it published a mildly critical review of his album, “Coloring Book.”
MTV subsequently yanked David Turner‘s online review, which argued that the album lacked the “emotional complexity” of Chance’s earlier work.
While Chance’s manager Pat Corcoran said MTV removed the review of its “own volition,” he called the review an “editorial misstep” and told Spin that he had complained to MTV after “Chance and I got together & both agreed that the article was offensive.”
Corcoran didn’t respond to Chicago Inc. this week. But any sore feelings between Chance and MTV seem to have been repaired. He last week appeared on the season opener of the network’s show “Wild ‘N Out.”
And Turner, who no longer works with MTV, told Inc. that he wasn’t surprised by MTV’s decision to spike the review because it had “caved” to other complaining artists in the past to maintain access.
“My genuine respect for Chance and his management maybe went down a bit,” he said. “But that is what artists are going to do, if they have an opportunity to do it.”
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