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Music

Kanye West and Vic Mensa Lit Up Chance The Rapper's High School Open Mic Night

Kanye also picked up an honorary doctorate, performed at a basketball game and confirmed his role in Spike Lee's forthcoming film. Is there anywhere he wasn't yesterday?
Emma Garland
London, GB

In a coming together of celebrity that could only happen post-internet or in a film starring Will Ferrell, Chance the Rapper performed at a youth poetry festival with Alec Baldwin back in March. We all enjoyed that. But what you may not know is that Chance's dedication to getting kids into the arts doesn't stop there; he also hosts a closed-door open "Open Mike" night for high school students in Chicago twice a month.

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Parents and teachers are always telling us that hard work and dedication pays off, and though we may to dismiss this message as a global #illuminati #conspiracy to keep us all less #woke, last night we saw their truth inaction. Chance brought along Kanye West and Vic Mensa as surprise guests, and they performed "U Mad," "We Don't Care," and "All Day" to an audience of what history may well refer to as "The World's Most Stoked Teenagers."

@kanyewest at @OpenMikeChicago #OpenMike pic.twitter.com/RuyTa8Orw1

— awkward connoisseur. (@RaychJackson) May 12, 2015

As you can see, shit got lit, which is a lot more than can be said for last night's Chicaco Bulls game, which Kanye also showed up to for an impromptu performance of "All Day" during timeout. Watch the performance below, featuring a likely vlogger at 1:17 who films himself giving Kanye a thumbs down.

And this was all after Kanye collected his Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from The Art Institute of Chicago, officially adding "Dr. Kanye West" to his already large plethora of titles—which, as of yesterday, expanded to include a role in Spike Lee's forthcoming film, Chiraq, a musical based on the Greek comedy Lysistrata.

If weird acceptance speeches and watching Kanye struggle to tell jokes (such as "George Bush [long pause] has some very cool self-portraits") while maintaining his "I am Kanye and I am serious" face, then that is a thing you can watch in full below. Meanwhile, riddle me this: Is there anywhere he wasn't, yesterday?

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