Before anyone had even graced the stage, the passing of the late, great Muhammad Ali loomed heavily over this year’s ESPY Awards. While there was the usual celebrity back-patting—Justin Timberlake presenting the Icon Award to three retired legends, for instance—the ceremony veered from tradition by beginning with some star-studded advocacy for Black Lives Matter. This somber note ran through the whole ceremony, which ended in a pained Ali tribute from Chance the Rapper.

For the eulogy, Chance unveiled a melancholy new song against a photographic backdrop of shots of the Greatest, stretching himself beyond his hip-hop trademark with a fittingly soulful performance. Though accompanied by his usual collaborators—including Donnie Trumpet and Jamila Woods—the artist was also backed up by a gospel choir, appropriately scaling up the emotional weight of the tribute. Judging by the crowd’s reaction, the song created a shared moment of necessary and profound sadness.