Peter CottonTale

As a member of the Chance the Rapper-affiliated group the Social Experiment as well as a close collaborator with Chance on his own tracks, Chicago-based producer/keyboardist/musical director Peter Cottontale worked behind the scenes on projects that opened doors for collaborations with bigger names. His résumé grew from working on self-released mixtapes to credits on tracks by SZA, Lil Wayne, J. Cole, and Skrillex. He eventually made time to release some of his solo tracks as well, issuing "Forever Always" in 2018, a carefree single that included appearances from Chance, Daniel Caesar, Yebba, and others. Peter Cottontale was first known as Peter Wilkins, a Chicago area musician who specialized in keyboards but played a variety of instruments and also produced. He worked with Chance the Rapper, in particular producing parts of his 2012 mixtape 10 Day. Chance and Wilkins would continue collaborating with the formation of the Social Experiment, a live band with Wilkins on keyboards that often backed up the rapper. In addition to his appearances on Chance-related material, Wilkins added his talents to various tracks by other high-profile artists, including production on Vic Mensa's 2013 mixtape INNANETAPE, vocals on Skrillex's 2014 opus Recess, and composition for parts of SZA's critically acclaimed 2017 album Ctrl. In addition to his collaborations, Wilkins worked steadily on his own songs, issuing his single "Forever Always" in the summer of 2018. ~ Fred Thomas