One Chance ready for stardom

• By JOHN STARR
• Special to 2theadvocate.com
• Published: Apr 22, 2008 - UPDATED: 5:50 p.m.

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Based out of Chicago, One Chance is gearing up to make it big with their single, “U Can’t,” featuring Young Joc. Not only is this single getting airplay, but the group is also about to release their debut album and begin a summer tour with multiplatinum artist Usher.

One Chance isn’t an overnight success, they have been working on their career for quite a while. The group’s story started with brothers Jon and Michael Gordon.

“When Michael and I were growing up, we wanted to start a group.” Jon Gordon said. “We started going around to different high schools looking for other artists. We came across Rob [Brent] at his high school in Chicago. Me, Michael and Rob started doing a high school tour, performing and stuff, and we came across Courtney [Vantrease]. From there, we got One Chance.”

This was six years ago, but even in high school, the road was not easy.

“It started off in Chicago. We were selling CDs and trying to move around town, so we would be seen and heard. We had our own little promotional tour,” Vantrease said. “There were a lot of obstacles. A lot of people said we needed to change certain things and styles. We also had another member we had to let go.

“There were a lot of things we had to go through. We took what everybody was saying and used it to our advantage.”

Once Chance finally received their big break at a showcase in Atlanta.

“Eventually, we hit it up in Atlanta where we knew a person, who knew a person, who knew a person, who knew Usher,” Vantrease said. “They entered us into Usher’s showcase. Out of the 14 acts, we won his showcase, and Usher signed us.”

After getting signed by the Grammy-award winning musician, the group was poised for their moment in the spotlight.

Unfortunately, their wait wasn’t quite over.

“[Usher] actually signed us a while back. Considering he was releasing his last album, we had to wait our turn. So we sat, got our things together, practiced and stayed in shape,” Vantrease said. “He finished up his tour and then went kind of hard on our project. That’s when we released ‘Look at Her,’ which was pretty much a warm up, so everybody could get a feel for us.”

“During those times of sitting and waiting, we got frustrated,” Jon Gordon said. “We were wondering if this was ever going to happen. While he was doing his tours, we had to learn how to have patience and dedication, being determined to keep going no matter what frustrations might set in.”

Even though this was an extremely trying time, the group stayed focused.