2010: Musical beginnings Chance's cover of
Lady Gaga's "
Paparazzi" was posted to YouTube on April 28, 2010, and for almost two weeks, the video generated low views. At least two social websites, GossipBoy.ca and
Reddit, posted video embeds on May 10, 2010. The next morning, it was embedded on ryanseacrest.com, which reported finding the video via
BuzzFeed, a website that attempts to track and predict emerging viral internet memes. Later in the day,
TVGuide,
The Huffington Post, and
Yahoo! Music's video blog, Video Ga Ga, also posted articles embedding the video;
TVGuide mentioned that a Facebook fan page had already been started for Chance. That afternoon,
Ryan Seacrest and
Ellen DeGeneres linked the video on their Twitter accounts, as did celebrity
Ashton Kutcher later that evening. DeGeneres first saw the video after Chance's brother, Tanner Chance, wrote to her show suggesting she watch it. The video had about 10,000 views when DeGeneres first saw it. On the afternoon of May 11, Yahoo! Music reported: "As of this writing, the video has had more than 36,000 views so far, and he's even been invited to perform on
The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
The Wall Street Journal and
Los Angeles Times, among other mainstream media, posted articles embedding the video and announcing the forthcoming appearance. Chance taped an interview and performance of "Paparazzi" in Los Angeles. During the interview, Chance received a phone call from Gaga, who the boy says is his "true inspiration." That evening,
ABC World News broadcast a report on Chance, introduced by
Diane Sawyer, who said the story struck ABC News as "part
Billy Elliot and part
Glee." On May 13, Chance's appearance on
The Ellen DeGeneres Show was broadcast, and mainstream media, including
CBS and
People, reported on the appearance. That morning, Ryan Seacrest posted another link on Twitter, this time to the video of Chance appearing on
The Ellen DeGeneres Show. On May 15, Chance created an official
Myspace page and an official Twitter account. Chance made a second appearance on
Ellen, airing May 26, 2010, on which he performed his original song "Broken Hearts", received a $10,000 award for winning ''Ellen's Wonderful Web of Wonderment'' contest, a brand new
Yamaha piano, and was announced as DeGeneres's first signed artist to her new recording label
eleveneleven. While explaining her reasons for naming her record label, she listed as one reason the fact that she first saw Chance's "Paparazzi" cover on May 11, 2010. Also, she states that 11 is Chance's soccer jersey number.
Guy Oseary, who manages
Madonna's career, and
Troy Carter, who manages Gaga's career, would be co-managers of Chance's career, but no partnership with a major recording label had been finalized. Because of his quick rise, including fast creations of fan sites, and high quality of the videos,
The Christian Science Monitor examined the story to see if it was genuine or a clever marketing campaign, ultimately stating the "video is legit." In May 2010,
ITN News raised many of the same questions; highlighting aspects of Chance's "Paparazzi" video, media industry analyst Alan Stevens pointed out the growing inability within modern media culture to distinguish between videos which are produced by amateurs and videos which are produced by professionals but made to appear amateur in origin.
2010–2014: ''Hold On 'til the Night and Truth Be Told, Part 1'' '' in July 2011 His debut single, "
Waiting Outside the Lines", was released to iTunes on October 26, 2010. It was released digitally in the UK on December 9. The single also contained a remix featuring
Filipino singer
Jake Zyrus (then Charice), as well as studio versions of his covers of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" and "
Fire" by
Augustana. Throughout December, Chance appeared at
We Day 2010 in downtown
Toronto at the
Air Canada Centre, where he performed "Fire", and visited both Paris and London, appearing on local radio stations and giving private concerts in both cities. On February 5, 2011, Chance entered the National spotlight again with a performance of "Waiting Outside the Lines" on CBS's
Early Show, while stopping through New York on
Miranda Cosgrove's
Dancing Crazy Tour. He then started the
Waiting 4U tour with Australian pop/R&B singer
Cody Simpson on April 9 in Ivins, Utah. The tour ended on May 18, 2011, in Portland, Oregon. On May 17, 2011, his second single, "Unfriend You", was released to iTunes and, on May 23, Chance visited
The Ellen DeGeneres Show to premiere the single. After the performance, Chance revealed a solid release date for his debut album ''
Hold On 'Til the Night, which was released on August 2, 2011. The music video features an appearance by Ariana Grande. On September 15, he again appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' to talk about his album, and also revealed that he had taken his first steps into acting, portraying a younger version of
Jimmy Chance, the protagonist of Fox's comedy
Raising Hope, in the series' second-season premiere. The episode aired on September 20, 2011. In November 2011, Chance undertook a tour of Southeast Asia to promote his album, which had just been released in the region. The tour started in
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, where in addition to a showcase performance he was invited to perform at the
Malaysian Music Industry Awards show (the first foreign artist so invited since 1999) with Malaysia YouTube sensation,
Najwa Latif, Chance also gave performances in Singapore;
Kota Kinabalu (
Borneo, Malaysia);
Manila, Philippines; and
Jakarta, Indonesia. In March 2012, Chance returned to Asia to support the release of a special edition of the album, which was released to the Asian market on March 20. He was accompanied by his full four-part band and gave full concert performances in
Kuala Lumpur, Singapore,
Jakarta, and
Manila, before going on without the band on a promotional tour to
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and
Bangkok, Thailand. In early July, he was back in the region for promotional and TV appearances in Hong Kong and
Changsha (
Hunan, China). In August, he performed at the
MTV-
CCTV Mandarin Music Awards show in Beijing and won the award for Most Popular New International Artist of the Year. In November 2012, after releasing his new EP,
Truth Be Told Part 1, he again returned to Asia for a promo tour starting in
Kota Kinabalu (
Borneo,
Malaysia) to
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, Singapore and
Manila, Philippines.
2014–2018: Somewhere Over My Head On January 13, 2014, Chance released a new song named "Temptation" onto his SoundCloud. He performed the song at the
Sundance Film Festival. Throughout the year, he continued the process of writing and recording his EP,
Somewhere Over My Head. On September 16, Chance released a single called "Thrilla In Manila". Another track named "Meridians" was released on March 24, 2015. Both songs, ultimately, did not appear on the final track list. The official lead single, "Afterlife", was released on October 29, 2015. In 2016, it was succeeded by "Hit & Run" on February 5 and "Back On the Wall" on April 29 as the second and third singles, respectively. On April 28, he released a new music video for his single "Back On The Wall" on his YouTube channel. The EP was released May 13, 2016. Before the release of
Somewhere Over My Head, from January 27 to February 1, 2016, Chance performed three shows in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City. He had a release party of his new EP in
YouTube Space LA on May 13, 2016. And on May 28–29, he had another two shows after the release of the EP in San Francisco and
Seattle. During promotion of the EP, Chance was also featured on an electronic dance track by
tyDi and Jack Novak titled "Oceans", which was released on February 19, 2016. In February 2016, he was picked as
Elvis Duran's Artist of the Month and was featured on
NBC's
Today show hosted by
Kathie Lee Gifford and
Hoda Kotb and broadcast nationally where he performed live his single "Hit & Run". In June 2016, one month after releasing his new EP,
Somewhere Over My Head, Chance returned to Asia for a short promo tour starting in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and
Penang in Malaysia, and
Manila, Philippines. On September 15, 2016, Frank Pole released a song titled "Anything" which featured Chance. On December 23, 2016, Chance released a song called "London". On May 6, 2017, Chance is also featured on Fabian Mazur's song called "Earn It". On May 12, 2017, Chance's cover of "Hungry Eyes" was released as part of the soundtrack album for the television film remake of
Dirty Dancing. On June 30, 2017, Chance released a song called "Seasons". On December 8, 2017, Chance released his single "Low", and on May 4, 2018, he released his single "Lighthouse", collaborating with Danish-American DJ & music producer Fabian Mazur. Another single was released on June 8, 2018, called "Good As Gold".
2019–present: Portraits, Trophies, and Palladium in October 2019 On March 15, 2019, Chance released his second studio album,
Portraits. Due to his success independently, Chance signed his second major record deal with Sony Music Global and Arista Records, which will release any subsequent material he produces, in June 2019. In the same month he also announced a
world tour promoting Portraits. On January 15, 2021, Chance released "Holy Feeling", the lead single from his next studio album. The second single, "Hellboy", was released on April 23. Chance announced on April 29 that his third studio album,
Trophies, would be released on June 25, 2021. That May, he announced he would be embarking on the Trophies World Tour, visiting various cities in North America and Europe over 2021 and 2022. In March 2022, it was announced that Chance would make his feature film debut, starring in
Maybelline Prince. Chance's fourth studio album,
Palladium, was released on September 22, 2022. He then embarked on a North American tour which ended that December. On March 2, 2023, Chance announced on his Twitter account that a deluxe edition of
Palladium would be released. It was released on April 21, 2023, and contained two new songs, "Sex & Other Drugs" and "Herringbone". On June 2, 2025, in an
Instagram post, Chance announced the Gold Tour, visiting cities in south east Asiaincluding Bangkok, Manila, Singapore and Jakartain October and November 2025. ==Personal life==