Chance the Rapper Covers ‘Arthur’ Theme Song With Wyclef Jean
Nineties nostalgia has hit a new high mark: Rising MC Chance the Rapper, known for his penchant for the absurd, has released a boisterous, ebullient cover of the theme song to the PBS children’s show, Arthur.
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Originally performed by Ziggy Marley and called “Believe in Yourself,” Chance has been performing his version, dubbed “Wonderful Everyday: Arthur,” live for some time now. The studio version, as Spin points out, features not only Chance’s live band, the Social Experiment, but a slew of guest vocalists including Wyclef Jean, Jessie Ware, Elle Varner, Francis and the Lights, the O’my’s, Peter Cottontale, Eryn Allen Kane and Donnie Trumpet.
Chance opens the track solo, ushering in a hodgepodge of vocal tracks that swirl around piano plunks and cymbal rushes, but things come together in rapturous fashion in the final third as the song morphs into a bounding singalong marked by horn stabs and a funky synth line.
While an illness forced Chance to cancel his Coachella set as well as some surrounding tour dates this spring, he’ll return to the stage this weekend for a homecoming set at Lollapalooza in Chicago. Chance also played Lolla last year following the release of his breakout mixtape, Acid Rap, and discussed the homecoming show to Rolling Stone. “When you’re a Chicago artist, to play Lollapalooza, that’s not a normal thing,” said the rapper. “It’s artists on a path to a certain place that do that. Chief Keef did it; Kids These Days did it; Cool Kids did it. And I’m the next Cool-Kids-Chief, if you will. [Laughs] I used Lollapalooza as a checkpoint for my whole year. It’s the reason I was able to wake up every day and keep touring. It was like, ‘All I gotta do is not die or break my legs before Lollapalooza.'”