This is my gift to anyone who reads this blog and has not yet experienced the greatness of Macklemore. The Seattle hip-hop scene may seem obscure to outsiders, but over the course of the last ten years it has evolved tremendously. The Blue Scholars put Pacific Northwest rap on the map, the release of their first album laid a foundation for PNW hip-hop, the album was like almost nothing I had heard before, and it truly reflected life in the northwest. Over the years other groups like Common Market, and Abyssinian Creole have surfaced, clearly embracing the conscious and poetic elements posited by the Blue Scholars, but still the music didn't find much an audience outside Washington and Oregon.
Macklemore may not be the remedy to the lack of airtime that Seattle rap artists are getting, but to me he represents the culmination of nearly a decade of evolution, a new peak in a mountainous landscape of dedicated and talented performers. His music is nothing more and nothing less than poetry, his flow doesn't fit inside the conventional box that exists within pop rap today, and his message is almost always deeper than you can grasp in the first or second time through the song. But the beauty of Macklemore is that he is multi-dimensional, and willing to take risks and explore identities in ways that many rappers are incapable of.
When you listen to his music you feel like you get a real glimpse into the life a genuine and in many ways ordinary guy. He doesn't attempt to construct a fictitious character for himself, nor does he attempt to be a completely idealistic revolutionary (both extremes exist far too often in hip hop). Instead Macklemore just raps about what's on his mind, it might be the kicks he wore as a teenager, the cough syrup he used to drink, the Seattle Mariners that he grew up watching, being a stay at home dad, being a dancing fiend ... oh yeah, and how privilege blinds us and dehumanizes both the people around us and ourselves, or how blind consumerism is part of the backbone of our country and how it imbues things we don't need with almost magical qualities, or the incredible amount of personal destruction that is inextricably tied to drug abuse.
The man has a sense of humor, and at the same time he is real, unlike hyper-concious rappers he doesn't pontificate about abstractions, he speaks about his own experiences and honestly reflects on them. I don't want to go too much further in my praise for this man and his work ... it would get kinda weird real fast, all I can say is that he is one of the best artists there is right now in music period, and he is an awesome breath of fresh air. Listen, enjoy, and just know that he is even better in concert than in recordings.
