BET Awards 2017: Michelle Obama Congratulates Chance the Rapper on Humanitarian Award

Chance spoke against police brutality, marijuana laws, and more in acceptance speech
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Obama photo by Brad Barket/BET/Getty Images for BET; Chance photo by C Flanigan/WireImage

Chance the Rapper accepted the BET Humanitarian Award at the BET Awards tonight. Before he took the stage to accept the honor, Michelle Obama delivered a taped video message, addressing the musician and celebrating his accomplishments. “With these passionate efforts, Chance is showing our young people that they matter, that they have something inside of them that is worthy of being expressed, and they have so much to contribute to their community and our country,” she said. “I can think of no better legacy to leave, and I am thrilled to celebrate you here to tonight and honored to call you my friend.” Find a snippet of her message below.

Once Chance took the stage, he said, “To be receiving something like this at my age… it feels a little early to be getting something like this, but my God doesn’t make mistakes.” The rapper then continued on to address the government, saying, “Y'all need to let everybody out of jail for selling weed before y'all start making it legal for people to sell it and make capital off it! I was gonna tell the Chicago Public School system not to take out a loan from Chase bank, when they know that our schools are planning on failing in our district. I was gonna tell those judges that we just need a conviction when we know these niggas wrong for doing this.” Watch a clip of his speech below as well. In March, Chance announced a $1 million donation to Chicago Public Schools during a press conference he live streamed from Westcott Elementary School in the city.