Chance The Rapper's New Music Has Ties to Rodgers & Hammerstein

On Saturday night, Chance the Rapper did double duty hosting and performing on Saturday Night Live. During his SNL musical performance, Chance performed his new song "Zanies and Fools," which opened with a video of his daughter singing "Impossible/It's Possible" from Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella.

Watch the performance below!

Chance's connections to the musical and the famed duo doesn't stop there, though. The song he performed on SNL, "Zanies and Fools," is the final track on his debut studio album, The Big Day, and the name of the song orginates from the the song "Impossible/It's Possible" from R&H's Cinderella. The song also features the Chicago Children's Choir singing the phrase "It's possible" throughout the song, which comes from the Cinderella song, too.

"Zanies and Fools" was inspired by that song, and Chance was particularly influenced by the 1997 Cinderella broadcast starring Whitney Houston and Brandy.

The lyric in question from the song is "But the world is full of zanies and fools / Who don't believe in sensible rules." The opening line of Chance's song is "Well we must be some zanies and fools / To take a gamble on this love just like we do".

Originally written for television by legendary musical theatre duo Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, the 1957 presentation of Cinderella starring Julie Andrews was one of the most watched TV musicals of all time. Cinderella was twice re-made for television, first in 1965 starring Lesley Ann Warren and then again in 1997 featuring Brandy and Whitney Houston, always featuring magical transformations. The cherished musical was adapted for the stage as Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella with stage craft recreating the visual effects. Its 2013 Broadway production starring Laura Osnes, Santino Fontana, Victoria Clark and Harriet Harris received 9 Tony Award nominations and William Ivey Long won the Tony Award for his elegant and enchanted costume design, which included converting Ella from rags to ballgown before the audience's eyes.