The room is packed, as recording studios tend to be at one in the morning. The weather in downtown Chicago is on brand: blistering cold. Inside are engineers and beat tweakers and Shake Shack runners and weed deliverers and weed rollers and childhood friends now playing the integral part of weed passers. And there’s Chance the Rapper, the 23-year-old man-child—new favorite of Barack Obama and Lin-Manuel Miranda, “nephew” to Beyoncé, locker-room go-to for LeBron, heir apparent to Kanye West. The scene in the studio is Hip-hop 101: A small room with a rapper and people watching the rapper. Beats blasting from rectangles. SportsCenter looping on the television. The Lakers lost again. Standard business.

To the music industry, Chance the Rapper is anything but standard business. He’s like nothing it’s seen since you-know-who. But he’s different from Kanye, too. His raps are complex and savvy—more like Eminem’s, but born-again—and packed with winks and finger-gun shit talking. His voice, when he sings (and he sings often), straddles a line between Rugrats and B. B. King. There’s pain and hope, naïveté and wisdom. He’s an independent artist. No label. No distribution deal. Nada. He’s given away every album/mixtape/whatever-we’re-calling-songs-lumped-together for free nowadays. His rise wasn’t overnight—he just started young. First there was 10 Day, the mixtape he recorded while serving a ten-day suspension from Jones College Prep High School. And then Acid Rap, the album that turned the heads of every label exec in North America. Then maybe his most overlooked—and possibly best—project, Surf, with Donnie Trumpet, a friend who (surprise) plays the trumpet. It’s soulful and layered and a completely new concept. Last year, when Kanye tapped Chance for the opening track of The Life of Pablo, Chance stole the show. With the world suddenly watching, he dropped his third mixtape, Coloring Book, and now he hangs out in the White House. How to explain it? There’s something rare and powerful at play. Every verse, every video, every show seems like you’re watching him on a quest. A sword in one hand that’s almost too large for him to carry. A crown he has yet to grow into, blocking part of his vision. World tour, Billboard charts, Grammys… Chance conquers. And all with a smile on his face.

Tonight it’s just his friends and me watching. He ashes a cigarette and steps to the mic with his chest inflated and hat low. “IT’S CHRI-MAAAAAAAAAA, IT’S CHRI-MA…” He’s making a Christmas album. (Or maybe not, because as his engineer points out, it’d have to be done in the next four days or so to make it out before Christmas.) Chance ignores that note from his engineer. Why? Because it’s Chri-maaaaaaaaaa, it’s Chri-ma. He dances and “bops” uncontrollably while he sings the hook to the room.

As I watch him create melodies on the spot, it’s most apparent that Chance is a child of instinct. If it feels right, cue it up. And if it feels wrong—no matter who’s done it before—good riddance. Signing to a label and someone else owning your music? Felt wrong. Making music that’s uplifting and hopeful and “clean-cut” feels right. Songs with choruses feel wrong—sometimes. And wearing a cap feels right—all of the time. It’s child-like creation in an industry of hyper-produced mega-songs. Even his name is knee-jerkish: Chance the Rapper. It seems to be the first thing to come into someone’s head when he decides that he’s going to rhyme words for a living. So that’s where we begin, alone in a room above the crew and engineers and weed relay.

GQ: Your name, Chance the Rapper, is funny. A generational joke, in a way. But you’re nominated for seven Grammys. People are saying you’re going to be one of the greatest to ever do it.

CHANCE THE RAPPER: [laughs] I can super appreciate all that pressure. I’ll take that.

Your name seems more temporary than your talent, though. It’s too silly, in a way. Do you ever think about changing it or just going by Chance?

Yeah. I think it’s everything that you’re saying, but going in the opposite direction. My dad used to always say, “You need to change your name to Chance the Artist. This song, this is different.” I remember one day I was with Justin—my best friend, who has always been really good at school, really smart, really good at speaking to people. I remember my dad would introduce us to folks and they would ask, “What’re you going to be when you grow up?” Justin’s fucking 7 years old talking about, “I’m going to be a biomedical engineer.” You know, he’s just that guy. And I remember they asked me, and I said a rapper. And my dad laughed it off, like, “No, he doesn’t…” You know?

And I remember that shit used to bother the fuck out of me, because I thought Kanye West was the smartest man in the world. The best poet in the world. The freshest-dressed in the world. That’s what a rapper was to me, and I wanted everybody to feel that way about the word “rapper.” And “rapper,” to me, is pretty much synonymous with the word “black.” It’s a stigma where it’s like, “Damn, I heard Chance the Rapper. I didn’t think he was going to sound like that.” I hate that when you introduce yourself, and you’re a rapper, sometimes you gotta say, “I’m a musician.” Or, “I’m an artist.” “I’m a recording artist.” “I’m a vocalist.”

You should be proud to say: I’m a rapper.

I’m a rapper! You should be able to say that shit and, like, make someone scared in a good way. Like, “Oh shit, you might know the president!” It should feel that way.