Chance The Rapper debuts Thanksgiving song on SNL

Eminem, Grey perform

LOS ANGELES, Nov 19, (RTRS): 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 miniperformance, 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” tot he uncle telling Bill Cosby jokes.

Feeling

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.

It was a sketch months in the making but potentially the start of a new recurring property.

“Saturday Night Live” opened its Nov. 18 episode with a cold open sketch entitled “The Mueller Files,” inspired by Robert Mueller’s investigation into Julian Assange and Wikileaks back in May of this year, an action once again made topical by Mueller more recently subpoenaing the Trump campaign for Russiarelated documents.

“SNL” enacted a secret, Deep Throat-style meeting between Donald Trump Jr. (played by Mikey Day) and Julian Assange (played by Kate McKinnon) in London. “As secure as sliding into my DMs is, I thought this would be safer,” Day’s Trump Jr. said.

Alex Moffat later turned the nefarious duo into a mismatched threesome when he came in as Eric Trump, which prompted a comparison between McKinnon’s Assange and Draco Malfoy, though they noted that was a low blow and that “making fun of appearances is dad’s thing.”

McKinnon’s Assange was there to hand over Hillary Clinton’s emails but said he was “not some dumb blond you can take advantage of.” What he wanted in return was to be cleared of espionage charges. Day’s Trump Jr. said their family takes care of their allies, to which Moffat’s Eric asked about Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani and “mom.”

Musical

Eminem was the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” on Nov. 18 and he brought Skylar Grey along for a performance that started with his new single “Walk on Water” and evolved into renditions of “Stan” and “Love The Way You Lie,” as well.

In a white gown, Grey sat and sang at a piano just behind and off to the side of Em, who wore all black, including his trademark hoodie pulled up over a baseball cap. He shifted his weight side to side as he began the new song but his movements increased as the song went on.

Though “SNL’s” audio engineers had their fingers ready to mute certain choice words in the song, they did not bleep “retarded” out of the second verse (“Kids look to me as a god, this is retarded/If only they knew, it’s a facade and it’s exhaustive”).

When the beat picked up behind Grey’s third chorus, Em waved his right arm over his head and mouthed the words along with her. Picking up energy himself, he stepped out from behind the mic stand to move around the stage for the third verse, a particularly emotional one that includes a tribute to his late best friend and former D12 member Proof (nee DeShaun Holton): “But the only one who’s looking down on/me that matters now’s DeShaun/Am I lucky to be around this long?/ Begs the question though/especially after the methadone/as yesterday fades and the Dresden home/is burnt to the ground, and all that’s left of my house is lawn./The crowds are gone/and it’s time to wash out the blond.”

After Em reminded the audience that he wrote “Stan” in the kicker of “Walk on Water,” Grey stepped out from behind the piano to sing the chorus of that 1999 hit. Performing only a portion of that almost seven minute track, they then shifted into part of “Love The Way You Lie,” off his 2010 “Recovery” album. (Rihanna, not Grey, is featured on the song on the album, though Grey co-wrote it.)

Em and Grey have collaborated on a number of songs through the years, including the “I Need A Doctor” 2011 single with Dr. Dre, “Ahole” from his 2013 “The Marshall Mathers LP 2” album, “Twisted” from Shady Records’ 15th anniversary celebratory disc “Shady XV,” and most recently, “Kill For You” off her 2016 “Natural Causes” album.

“Walk on Water,” Em’s first single from his upcoming “Revival” album, dropped Nov. 10 and moved into the No.1 position on iTunes hip-hop chart later that same day and into the top 10 in “songs in every category,” as well.

After Al Franken was accused of sexual assault earlier this week, “Saturday Night Live” used its Nov. 18 “Weekend Update” segment to address the allegations against the senator who was once a “SNL” writer himself.