Why does anyone listen to the rapper Macklemore? It can’t be for his music, because, although his 2009 song “Thrift Shop” reached the top of the iTunes Charts, his music is terrible. It must be because he looks like Vanilla Ice – which is such a shame because The Ice Man’s Greatest Hits album is being sold for under a tenner online. For some reason, The Internet has taken Macklemore under its moneymaking wing. But, just like everything else that’s popular on the web, (e.g. picture of cats) Macklemore just isn’t all he’s cracked up to be.
Macklemore is popular because he has the reputation of being a different kind of rapper. He isn’t a thug, he doesn’t obsess about money or women – he worries about his favourite charity shop closing or his grandmother getting ill. He’s the type of musician who would bring your mum flowers the first time he’s invited to your home. He’s socially conscious and raps about things that matter, like making sure you eat enough vegetables. He even dropped the ‘Professor’ from his name as he realised he didn’t have the qualification and it was dishonest. But, getting Macklemore to have a quiet word with Professor Green aside, is he really a different kind of rapper?
Rap was used to address social issues from its very beginning. It’s bread and butter was in highlighting the problems of the day. An early example of this is Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” which covered the individual fight against the pressures of society. It’s a strong and powerful song. When Macklemore’s line “..Gucci … that’s $50 for a t-shirt” is compared to GMF’s line ‘Sometimes I think I'm going insane, I swear I might hijack a plane” it’s clear that he’s not a rapping revolutionary. Yet, Macklemore is smug about his shallow lyrics. He swans around looking like the lovechild of Lil John and Liberace, in his knock-off glasses and second hand clothes, as though he’s taking a political stand.
Recently, Macklemore was lauded as being unique for his stand on gay marriage. He performed his song ‘Same Love’ on “The Ellen Show”. You’d be forgiven for thinking he was a visionary by the way Ellen DeGeneres introduced him. Yet, for all his hype, his lyrics were hollow – speaking about being thought gay because he could draw and how being called a ‘faggot’ must hurt. His lyrics, if true, were ridiculously childish and didn’t go very much further than saying love keeps him warm. Ellen must’ve had him on to be ironic. If she had truly wanted a segment on anti-gay feeling in the rap industry, she could have just invited Zebra Katz, an openly gay rapper, along for a few minutes. Just having him on the programme would have achieved a lot more than Macklemore could ever do on the subject.
Macklemore is completely out of his depth addressing any issue. His recent reputation of being a progressive rapper is completely fabricated. Other than the ‘pro-gay’ song mentioned, his lyrics are sickeningly shallow. The majority of his work does little more than advertise clothes labels, objectify women and promote drug taking. In addition, although reported to be anti-commercial, he took a large and undisclosed amount of money in an advertisement deal with NBA.
Macklemore is popular, though. He seems to have a fanbase of people who are vaguely political due to “Same Love”. These people seem to like the idea of songs that reflect a ‘just liberal enough’ attitude – lyrics just vague enough for any side to like. The only reason why Macklemore has gained so much attention as a ‘progressive rapper’ is due to this one song being listened to by people who don’t know rap in the first place. But maybe this is harsh, maybe Macklemore really does have things to say but is terrified that if he told people to separate plastics and recycle paper, he’d be singled out like Tupac and be killed?
It’d be nice to think that Macklemore’s popularity might encourage studios to promote rappers with real messages that would normally go unnoticed. This is pretty unlikely, though. We’ll probably just be stuck with Macklemore as the mouthpiece for our generation. Let’s look forward to his next single: “War”. You can already imagine the lyrics:
War is really bad,
It makes me really sad.
Don’t smoke crack
Peace in Iraq.
Isn’t it beautiful?
Featured Image: Billboard.com
Featured Video: Youtube
No comments:
Post a Comment