The BET Awards took place on Sunday night, and Chance the Rapper—one of the greatest human beings in North America—took home the BET Humanitarian Award (because the BET Awards is one of the few award shows that takes a second to acknowledge outstanding nonprofit and humanitarian work artists contribute to.)
Chance earned the award by virtue of his tireless work on behalf of the Chicago Public School system, to which he has donated over a million dollars and counting, along with starting his own nonprofit to benefit CPS. To honor his work, artists like Common and Jesse Williams taped recordings of their love of Chance and his work, and then the BET surprised the crowd with a pre-taped message from Michelle Obama.
“With these passionate efforts, Chance is showing our young people that they matter,” Obama said. “That they have something inside of them that is worthy of being expressed, and that they have so much to contribute to their communities and to our country.”
You can watch the full message here, or catch a clip below.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama delivered a surprise message to humanitarian award recipient Chance the Rapper at the BET Awards last night pic.twitter.com/ZLvQsMiN1y
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 26, 2017
Chance goes way back with the Obamas. His dad worked for Barack Obama back when he was just a senator, and a very young Chance visited the White House with his family back early on in Obama’s first term as President (there’s a picture!).
