Chance The Rapper Debuts Thanksgiving Song, Sings ‘Come Back Barack’ on ‘Saturday Night Live’ (Watch)

Chance The Rapper wants to become the “Mariah Carey of Thanksgiving.”

Appearing on “Saturday Night Live” Nov. 18 as the episode’s host, Chance said he was not there to promote anything but the upcoming holiday. And in the spirit of giving he wanted to donate $1 million to Chicago public schools — only, he joked, he didn’t actually have the money. So his plan to make it? Cash in with a big holiday hit.

Noting that Carey is always at the Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremony singing “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Chance saw an opportunity in cornering the market on the lesser-musically celebrated holiday of Thanksgiving.

He did not reference Adam Sandler’s “Thanksgiving Song,” which famously debuted on “Saturday Night Live” decades earlier and has seen subsequent updates to the lyrics to include more topical names and references, though.

Turning his opening monologue into a mini-performance, Chance started with the lyrics: “It’s Thanksgiving time, the one day a year/where you invite the folks that you normally fear./It’s Thanksgiving time when you are forced to see/every single bad apple on your whole family tree.”

The song continued with regular “SNL” players like Leslie Jones, Pete Davidson, and Kennan Thompson rolling through the stage to represent various examples of those bad apples Chance was singing about — from magicians to the one who’s complaining that “nobody’s woke” to the uncle telling Bill Cosby jokes.

Later in the episode, Chance took part in a parody music video of boy bands like Boyz II Men. Alongside Thompson and Chris Redd he sang about feeling lost without a key figure in his life — but instead of it being a woman, it turned out to be former president Barack Obama.

Watch a clip of Chance’s “SNL” monologue and “Come Back Barack” below:

 

 

“Saturday Night Live” airs live coast-to-coast Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC.

 

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