Seattle’s legendary rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot has been a big proponent of Macklemore, too. And seemingly every track on that album boasts a local legend, from Hollis Wong-Wear to Allen Stone. Macklemore and his friend and producer Ryan Lewis rose to fame in 2012 with their album The Heist. In truth, he owes a lot to his city, which is why he’s often giving back. Today, as a father, Macklemore gets to take his kids to the parks he used to run around in. Home is his foundation and sense of belonging. Whether talking about his supportive parents or the city in which he grew up, the “Thrift Shop” rapper remains loyal to his roots. “If you’re trying to sound like somebody else, it’s going to sound contrived or forced.”Īnother common theme in Macklemore’s music is his home life. “Authenticity is what it comes back to,” he says. The result is a signature raspy sound that bites with confidence and flows with passion. By this time, he knew he couldn’t mimic anymore. Like he still does today, he’d listen to them in his car. At 20, he remembers being in college and making songs for the first time. The focus on styles caused Macklemore to find his own. Specifically, one’s ability to switch flows, sounds, tones, and cadences. At the time, he says, it was a very different era in rap. He began to experiment with his voice in high school. “When I started to record, I was, like, screaming. “You figure out who you are by rapping along with other people,” Macklemore says. At first, it was more mimicking than original, but it grew. At 15, Macklemore started rapping in earnest. Sprinkled in was the hip-hop artist Shock G of Digital Underground-specifically the album Sex Packets from 1990. Then rap (specifically, “Gangsta rap”) became the thing. Michael Jackson was the next big name in Macklemore’s burgeoning musical life. The distinctly ’80s song (from 1984, to be specific) is a driving, melodic, goofy track that could easily make anyone start dancing in their socks in the living room. It was “The Heat Is On” by Glenn Frey from the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack. In fact, Macklemore remembers the first song that hooked his heart. The 39-year-old Macklemore’s road to becoming a Grammy-winning, Diamond-certified artist began around the age of 5 in the Emerald City. That is where I start playing a much more dangerous game that resembles Russian roulette.” “There’s another side of addiction for me,” says Macklemore, who admits he had a relapse in 2020, “which looks like wanting to change with drugs and alcohol. But that’s part of the work, part of the balance, part of the day-to-day struggle. Addiction doesn’t have to be a negative thing if honed and focused toward the right direction. More recently, things like golf have become an obsession (leading to his new Bogey Boys clothing brand). He might be in his room for 12 hours a day, working and tinkering. Same when he got an 8-track a few years later. ![]() To wit, Macklemore remembers being around 15 years old in his bedroom with a 4-track recorder telling himself he was going to figure out how to use it. I keep it pushin’, and that’s what got me to this point.” If I’m like, ‘OK, today we’re in the studio,’ I’m probably going to be the last one in there. “I think my ADD personality has suited me well in certain aspects of my life,” he says. ![]() ![]() That is true for Macklemore, especially when it comes to his relationship with music. But beyond the woes, being uber-focused on one thing can also be a boon. ![]() Acknowledging his addictive ways allows him to investigate past traumas and past mistakes. It’s given him a purpose and means with which to dig deeper and closer to who he is, to both his gifts and character defects. Not only that, but his addiction has opened him up to a community of people he wouldn’t have otherwise known before, he says. This and much more comprise the subject matter of Macklemore’s new album, Ben, which is out March 3. To view himself clearly-not by over-indulging in any drug (not anymore, at least), but by providing an unflinching truth and way to know himself. For Macklemore, his compulsive tendencies made him who he is, for better or worse, and, in that way, they create the lens that allows him to see and discover who he is acutely. This is what Macklemore grapples with daily, like millions of others around the globe. Even those who work hard on curtailing their addictive personalities-giving up alcohol or some other mind-altering vice, let’s say-can weaken, forget how just one beer or one cigarette (or worse) can tip the scales toward demise. It’s the only one, Macklemore notes, that you can pretend you don’t have. But he wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world, he says. Every day, Macklemore (the Seattle-born rapper and businessman Ben Haggerty) wakes up knowing he will grapple with the realities of addiction.
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