Rap Revival

Macklemore and collaborator Ryan Lewis’ album The Heist was independently produced, recorded and released in October of last year. The album has enjoyed an overwhelmingly positive critical reception, with many critics asserting that the record pushes the boundaries of what we normally think of as the rap/hip hop genre.

In the beautiful track ‘Same Love’, featuring singer-songwriter Mary Lambert, Macklemore addresses the homophobia rampant in popular culture. “If I was gay, I would think hip hop hates me,” he raps, addressing the flippant use of phrases like “that’s gay” and “faggot”, recognising that “gay” has become “synonymous with the lesser”. Meanwhile, on ‘A Wake’, Macklemore subverts his genre even further, rapping back against the critics who have said “it’s so refreshing to hear somebody on records / no guns, no drugs, no sex”.

Rap and hip hop are often typecast as more problematic, more sexist and more violent than other genres – but Macklemore recognises that this perception has its roots in racism. The lyrics “white privilege, white guilt, at the same damn time,” shows an incredibly critical perception of his place in the genre as a white artist. As far back as 2005, when the phrase “white privilege” wasn’t in most people’s vocabulary, Macklemore released a song with the same title, dealing with his inner conflict over rapping as a white man in a genre “that’s been taken by my race”.

Lyrics such as “hip hop started off in a block I’ve never been to / to counteract a struggle that I never even went through”, “now I don’t rap about guns so they label me conscious / but I don’t rap about guns cause I wasn’t forced into the projects”, and “the face of hip hop has changed a lot since Eminem / and if he’s taking away black artists’ profits, I look just like him” address the way white people have appropriated black music such as jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, and most recently hip hop.

In a searing, honest, and personal way, Macklemore makes me aware of my own problematic position as a white hip hop fan, and even of my choice to write about his album today and not the album of an artist who is “rooted in authenticity, something you literally can’t learn”.

Rap/hip hop has a long history of fighting social injustice, and of providing a commentary on race and class which is unparalleled elsewhere in the music industry. Over the last decade, hip hop has been tamed into a clubland hip pop that has created artists such as Pitbull and Jason Derulo, and a lot of fans still have their old (and legendary) Dr Dre or Tupac albums on repeat. Lately, these genres are beginning to delve back into their roots, and to produce artists that are once again discussing society in the alarmingly real way that can only be found in the conversational nature of rap. Macklemore’s music is raw, painful, and all-encompassing in its subject matter, and The Heist is a stunning album that will make you question humanity and, above all, question yourself.