Is ABC’s ‘The Mayor’ Based On Chance The Rapper?

“The Mayor” creator Jeremy Bronson has revealed that the upcoming ABC series is loosely inspired by Chance The Rapper.

In a recent interview with Chicago Tribune, Bronson said that “The Mayor’s” main character, Courtney Rose (Brandon Micheal Hall), is “original” and “not directly based” on Chance. Bronson, however, revealed that he decided to make Courtney an aspiring rapper after he read about “Chance’s start, in which he was going to the Lyricist Loft.”

“I was very aware that he was socially conscious and was looking for ways to actually make a tangible difference,” Bronson said of Chance, who previously donated $1 million to Chicago public schools as part of a campaign to pressure the governor of Illinois to fix the school system’s budget. “So yeah, I thought Courtney Rose could be a similarly socially conscious, like-minded guy who could also translate that into action.”

Apparently, the cast of the show are huge fans of Chance. In an interview with TV Guide, Hall and his onscreen mom, Yvette Nicole Brown, said that Chance as well as his fellow rapper Common would make amazing politicians.

“We think that Common and Chance would be great as elected officials because they care about people, and they’re woke,” said Brown, who plays Dina Rose on the series.

“They’re not afraid to speak about issues that are meaningful to them,” added Hall. “They are people that are in higher positions that haven’t forgotten about the people that got them to that position.”

“The Mayor” follows the story of hip-hop artist Courtney who runs for mayor to promote his mixtape and ends up being elected. Besides Hall and Brown, the sitcom also stars Lea Michele as Courtney’s chief of staff Valentina Barella, Bernard David Jones as Jermaine Leforge and Marcel Spears as T.K. Carter.

While “The Mayor” is clearly a political show, Bronson told TV insider earlier this month that “Democrats and Republicans are not a part of the [show’s] universe.” “This is about a young man growing up and the people he’s populated his life with,” Bronson said. “The challenges that he’s facing are community-based.”

“The Mayor” premieres on Tuesday, Oct. 3 at 9:30 p.m. EDT on ABC.