Chance The Rapper took on a noble task over the Memorial Day Weekend. The 21-year-old rapper joined his father, Ken Williams-Bennett, to spread the word about "Save Chicago," a campaign to help combat gun violence in the city. 

Last week, the Chicago native tweeted "Save Chicago. this friday." without further explanation. What looked like a potential show date or music project was actually his way of getting the word out about the anti-violence crusade. The goal was to use the hashtag #SaveChicago to help bring a 42-hour ceasefire over the holiday weekend.  

Chance explained his father's campaign via his Twitter yesterday (May 27). "When i was in LA My pops asked me to help with a project," he tweeted. "He was tryin to get Community Org's in CHI to prevent every murder on Memorial Day. He had talked to Churches, Schools, Outreach Prog's and Business's, trying to get them to commit to saving every life possible yesterday [Memorial Day].

Bennett aimed at getting "mass numbers of people out on the street corners" the Friday before Memorial Day, in addition to spreading the anti-violence message over the media. "His plan was to get radio stations like @WGCI and @Power92Chicago to say 'PUT YOUR GUNS DOWN CHICAGO' every hour on the hour the wk before," Chance continued. "All he asked of me was to say something on social media. and so i did ambiguously through tweets that hinted at an album, or a song #MAY23rd."

And it paid off. Chance happily reported that Chicago answered the call to action. "Even though i was outta town i checked in constantly. come to FIND OUT WE WENT 42 HOURS FROM THURSDAY TO SATURDAY NIGHT W/O ONE SHOOTING," he wrote. 

By the end of the 42 hours, Chicago was back to its old behavior. Two people were shot dead Saturday afternoon and over the next couple days three others were killed and seven were injured in shootings across the city. 

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(Photo: Johnny Nunez/WireImage)