Chance The Rapper paid a virtual visit to the The Ellen DeGeneres show on Tuesday as part of her 12 Days of Giveaways.
The 27-year-old All Night rapper beamed in from a set in his native Chicago as he talked to Ellen about his first ever Christmas album with Jeremih – who is currently recovering from COVID-19 after a month-long battle – and his friendship with Justin Bieber.
Speaking about his personal and professional connections with both artists he called Justin in particular one of his ‘best friends,’ as he continued to share more about their working relationship.
Virtual visit: Chance The Rapper, 27, virtually visited The Ellen DeGeneres show on Tuesday as part of her 12 Days of Giveaways where he spoke about his new Christmas album with Jeremih and his close relationship with Justin Bieber
Ellen praised Chance for he and Bieber’s collaboration on Holy which prompted the rapper to reveal how the song came about.
‘He called me…you know, me and Justin have a bunch of songs together and he’s one of my best friends.’
‘He hit me up…and was like, “Yo I got this brand new song. I don’t care about the old records, I wanna make another song,” and I was like, “All right I’m down to make as many as you want”.’
He continued to say that Holy was really special due to the nature of their close friendship and the meaning behind the song.
12 Days of GIveaways: Bieber appeared on Ellen’s show last week and his good pal Chance appeared a week later as he sung the praises of their working relationship and good friendship while talking about their special song Holy; pictured December 1st
Parallel lives: Chance said the two were close having gotten married around the same age as he said they had ‘gone through a lot of that stuff together’; pictured 2016
‘Me and Justin are close. We’re a year apart, we got married at the same age, kinda like gone through a lot of that stuff together.’
Chance shared, ‘the song was about the relationship with our wives, the relationship with our faith,’ as he said it was ‘cool’ that it was connecting with a lot of people, while calling it ‘one of the most special records,’ they have done.
He shared earlier on the show that he was in the middle of doing a ‘special thing,’ eventually revealing that it was a virtual concert which he called a ‘Christmas surprise.’
Calling the ability to perform virtually ‘therapeutic,’ he said he was ‘lucky’ they afforded him the opportunity to ‘sing and feel good.’
New album: The All Night singer spoke about his new Christmas album, Merry Christmas: Lil’ Mama Deluxe with Jeremih which will be released on December 11th
In the vein of holiday cheer, Chance spoke about his new Christmas album, Merry Christmas: Lil’ Mama Deluxe, with rapper and friend Jeremih while touching on his critical battle with COVID-19 – only getting released from the hospital after what seemed like a bleak prognosis.
‘He got really really sick in the past couple of weeks and he was just released from the hospital the other day and made an amazing recovery. Thank god – it’s an awesome thing,’ he said.
The rapper revealed that their holiday album – which is out December 11th – was a ‘compilation of old songs and a couple new songs that started back in 2016.’
He said he and Jeremih were excited to ‘finally get it out there all these years later.’
Long time coming: The rapper said that he and pal Jeremih (right) had been working on the album since 2016 while calling it a ‘compilation of old songs and a couple new songs’; music video for Are You Live off Merry Christmas: Lil’ Mama Deluxe
Uphill battle: Jeremih was released from the hospital on Friday after nearly a month long battle with COVID-19 as his Christmas album collaborator Chance said to Ellen ‘Thank God’ for his amazing recovery; pictured 2020
He continued to tell Ellen about his charity work as well as a recent unlikely friendship he struck up with iconic singer Dionne Warwick who connected with him on Twitter after she called him out for his stage name last week.
‘Hi @chancetherapper. If you are very obviously a rapper why did you put it in your stage name? I cannot stop thinking about this,’ she wrote, which prompted an exchange as Warwick said she would ‘message him.’
Chance told Ellen, ‘I didn’t know she had a twitter…I definitely didn’t know she knew who I was,’ adding ‘she reached out and has got a really cool initiative with the homeless population that were gonna work together on.’
Praising the legend and their newfound connection he said, ‘I will do whatever she wants.’
Unlikely relationship: He spoke to Ellen about his newfound relationship with Warwick as he said they were going to work together on a ‘cool initiative with the homeless population’ while adding, ‘I will do whatever she wants’