Article: "Don't hate Macklemore because he's white; hate him because his music is terrible"

[Everlong]

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cult ... white.html

Holy fuck, this dude EVISCERATES Macklemore. Especially this paragraph:

No, I hate Macklemore and Ryan Lewis because I think their music is terrible at best, and worse than terrible at worst. It’s the lowest sort of middlebrow, an art-like commodity that shallow people think is deep and dull people think is edgy. The city that blessed us with Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana has now cursed us with the rap game Upworthy: a man hawking hip-hop that switches out faked emotion for real intellect and faked intellect for real emotion and has no discernible goals other than to congratulate its makers for making it and its listeners for purchasing it.

I don't even dislike Macklemore, but the comparison to Upworthy is so incredibly apt, especially with his song "Same Love." Now, don't get me wrong, I think that with "Same Love," he and Ryan Lewis have their hearts in the right place. But it's just not a good song. Great message, awful song. He gets more into critiques of that song in the article, but yeah.

But yeah, that Upworthy comparison is great. Upworthy is basically a website for white millennial slacktivists to pat themselves on the back for being so open-minded and willing to fight oppression while they drink their chai tea lattes and sit in front of their Macbooks. That's the feeling I've always kind of felt was engendered in "Same Love."

Anyway, I know there'll be at least a couple people on here who get a kick out of this article, so figured I'd post it.

[DanielsonTHAGOAT]

I agree, I wouldn't call him terrible but just really, really mediocre. The Heist is a failed attempt at emulating Kanye West's Graduation in terms of production and hit singles.

The only great thing out of The Heist is the success of his hit singles which are played by soccer moms and people who have no idea about hip hop. Also the success of his music has to do a lot with white privilege (which he even admits).

The problem I have with Macklemore is he is PURPOSELY pushing an agenda. His music comes across like "HEY IM MAKING A SONG ABOUT GAY PEOPLE AND EVERYONE IN HIP HOP ISNT AS CONSCIENCE AS I AM". When that's far from the truth and a song about marriage equality for gay people was already made by another underground rapper.

To me I feel like his making these songs JUST for record sales. In other words; I feel like he truly is a sell out and needs to disappear from the Hip Hop mainstream.

Macklemore lacks the basic skills of a rapper. He really has no flow, delivery, simple rhyme schemes, etc.

I think it's so laughable that people compare Macklemore to Eminem when Eminem is a lyrical beast and Macklemore isn't.

[Everlong]

I think it's so laughable that people compare Macklemore to Eminem when Eminem is a lyrical beast and Macklemore isn't.

But, but, they're both white!

[DanielsonTHAGOAT]

Also Kendrick was asked about the Grammys and Macklemore winning and he said he deserved it. Definitely a classy move by Kendrick.

Kendrick's Spotify listens have increased by 99% since the Grammys. As a guy who is a big literature/music fanatic, I can confidently say that Kendrick Lamar is the best writer of our generation. His discipline to make a conceptual album is insane. Good Kid MAAD City is essentially a movie and The Heist is literally carried by it's hit singles.

Guys like Macklemore makes me lose faith in hip hop on a mainstream level. The funny thing is I used to like Macklemore before The Heist. I remember when he released Wing$ and I was like, okay this is a cool message. Than he went on and kept making the same songs like Wing$ like Same Love and I realized that his just pushing an agenda just for the sake to sell. I wonder if he'll actually go back to being the rapper he was before or if his gonna continue to force the cringe worthy songs for the soccer moms.

[iMike]

I don't hate Macklemore, just more annoyed at the non hip-hop fans claiming that he's better than most rappers when they have very minimal knowledge of the subject itself.

[Str8Shooter]

I must be late to the party on the Macklemore hate lol, when did this start??

I just remember Thrift Shop and Same Love being bit hits and everyone loving them, and now everyone hates him? That was fast

[Everlong]

I must be late to the party on the Macklemore hate lol, when did this start??

I just remember Thrift Shop and Same Love being bit hits and everyone loving them, and now everyone hates him? That was fast

I still love Thrift Shop! I just think Same Love is a bad song with a good message. I don't like or dislike Macklemore really because those are the only two songs of his that I know, I just thought the article was hilarious.

[Hanley!]

Hey, I'm about to have a chai tea!

[Hanley!]

Jerk!

[Str8Shooter]

I need to know what just happened in here....

[Ali]

"Same Love" is not really even a song, it's more of a poetry slam with music behind it. I listened to it once, I appreciate the message, I support the message, but I don't need to listen to it again.

That being said, I like "Thrift Shop" and I really like "Can't Hold Us". I'm not an album guy, I'm just not, but I do like Macklemore's songs. I also like Kendrick Lamar's songs a lot, and take note here, I do agree that Kendrick Lamar is the better rapper.

That being said, I think this whole invented rivalry is ridiculously overblown considering that they do seem to respect each other quite a bit. But even so, I honestly think they're kind of similar. Both Macklemore and Kendrick Lamar are very subversive and I think they've both made it their mission to, in their own ways, deconstruct the hip-hop culture.

Again, I'm not a big album guy, but from what I've heard of it, "good kid, m.A.A.d. city" is just a total tearing down of everything we associate with rap culture from the inside. Kendrick Lamar kind of grew up more in what you typically think of as where rappers come from. On the flip side, Macklemore is a doofy white guy from Seattle who sees the typical rap culture from an outside perspective. With "Thrift Shop", he takes on the hip-hop materialism via a comedic spin, which broke him through. "Can't Hold Us" gave him more credibility by virtue of saving him from One-Hit Wonderdom, and that allowed him to release "Same Love", which, if nothing else, was a heartfelt and serious take on the fact that rap music does seem to have a lot of homophobia in it. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjILzRCfLVM#t=614 ) They're both attacking it in different ways and from different points of view, but Mack and Kendrick are not all that dissimilar in spirit, at least in my eyes.

So, yeah, "Same Love" is not actually great, but Mack isn't terrible in my opinion, and I kind of hope we get a collaboration between him and Kendrick at some point because that would blow peoples' minds.