On the road to Star Line Gallery, Chance the Rapper is back with “YAH Know.” It follows a trio of strong singles from the first half of 2022—“Child of God,” “A Bar About a Bar,” and “The Highs & The Lows” featuring Joey Badass.
The new song has a guest appearance from Ghanaian singer/songwriter King Promise and a visual written and directed by Chance. The release originated as a collaborative special presentation between Chicago painter and textile designer Mia Lee and Chano at Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art.
“The exhibition was a success!” the 29-year-old MC tweeted last month. “Big thank you to the Museum of Contemporary Art and Mia Lee for giving me one of the best nights of my life. I had planned to drop some new art tonight but Ima wait a lil while so you can get the message clearly Yah Know!”
He shared an intriguing minute-long preview in the celebratory post:
MOCA’s site has the following to say about the October presentation:
“Yah Know is a representation of generations of storytelling, particularly within Black families. It’s the recalling of personal stories about the journey one had to take told by a grandparent or parent in a first or third-person perspective. This scene shows the characters named ‘the lady’ and ‘the gentleman’ in movement. The explosion in the background represents having to adapt and move forward because of the circumstances that tend to throw one off course. The desolate landscape is for the viewer to fill with their own scene of relatable experiences or the ones they were told in their family. These are the details of the narratives that show vulnerability and honesty while connecting experiences from one generation to another.”
Watch the Chance-directed “YAH Know” video up top, and stream the song below.
Speaking to Complex’s Jordan Rose in September, Chance spoke about Star Line Gallery, the name of his next album and a larger concept.
“The ‘Gallery’ is the Star Line, and the Star Line is all of us. It’s going to be all Black artists from everywhere around the world with all different experiences, but a connection, and in conversation with me and my collaborators to create new pieces that show what it means to be Black right now,” the Acid Rap creator explained. “It’s not all drenched in the conversation of trauma or about the most familiar aesthetic of Black that we know right now. It’s about what is real.”
The rhymer and philanthropist added that he wasn’t planning to use traditional album art, preferring independent pieces to get their own shine. “While Chance didn’t sound exactly sure of how the lack of traditional album cover art would look logistically on streaming platforms, he didn’t seem concerned by the idea,” Rose wrote.
As an integral part of the Star Line Gallery era, Chance the Rapper’s also putting on the Black Star Line Festival in Accra, Ghana in January 2023. “It’s in Ghana right now, but I look to create more opportunities for artists of the diaspora to perform on the continent, and I also look to create opportunities for Black people to just have mass gatherings in other Black countries and communities,” he told Complex.
Today, the lineup was revealed to include Chance, Erykah Badu, T-Pain, Vic Mensa, Jeremih, Tobe Nwigwe, Sarkodi, Asakaa Boys, M.anifest, and “special guests.”
Black Star Line Festival tickets go on sale Monday, Nov. 21.
