White House Taps Chance the Rapper for Christmas Tree Lighting

Chance the Rapper, Kelly Clarkson and gospel star Yolanda Adams will perform at the White House’s annual National Christmas Tree Lighting, Pitchfork reports.

The event will take place December 1st and a free ticket lottery for the general public will begin October 7th. More information is available on the National Christmas Tree website.

Both Clarkson and Adams have performed at events during Barack Obama‘s tenure. Clarkson sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at his second inauguration in 2013, while Adams has appeared at White House “In Performance” events celebrating Ray Charles and the music of the Civil Rights movement.

Chance the Rapper, meanwhile, will make his White House performance debut at the Christmas Tree Lighting, but the MC’s ties to the Obama family go back to when his father — a community organizer in Chicago — worked for Obama when he was an Illinois state senator. In April, Chance was among several hip-hop and R&B stars invited to meet with Obama to discuss the administration’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative, while the President also prominently placed Chance’s “Acid Rain” on his summer playlist.

In a recent interview with GQ, Chance said Obama even offered him some career advice after the My Brother’s Keeper meeting. “He brings me up to his office, and we had a really good conversation about what I was working on,” Chance said. “He told me I needed to start selling my music. He’s a good man. Even if he wasn’t president, if his ass worked at, like, Red Lobster, he’d be just a good man working at Red Lobster.”