Macklemore lands on the cover of The Source magazine's fourth annual Man of the Year issue. He talks to publication about the upcoming Grammy Awards, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar and his success.
What if you win the Grammy for Best Rap Album and Kanye spazzes and says it should have gone to someone else?
Then he’s got a point. [In the Best Rap Album category], we’re up against Kendrick, who made a phenomenal album. If we win a Grammy for Best Rap Album, Hip-Hop is going to be heated. In terms of [that category], I think it should go to Kendrick. He’s family. TDE is family, and I understand why Hip-Hop would feel like Kendrick got robbed [if he didn’t win]. I’m not trying to compare albums; I think you can make an argument for both. With that being said, I am a huge supporter of what Kendrick does. And because of that, I would love to win in a different category. We obviously had massive success on commercial radio, and I think that, in ways, The Heist was a bigger album, but Kendrick has a better rap album.
That’s interesting because you consider yourself a Hip-Hop artist who came out of the underground scene. Actually, you were an Unsigned Hype artist right here in The Source. Do you feel like all the mainstream success has affected your Hip-Hop credibility?
People are going to be skeptical. I’m a white dude from Seattle. People are rightfully skeptical of white people making Hip-Hop. They’re gonna say, “Let me hear him rap. Let me hear an interview.” Before we sold a million copies of the album, when it was just “Thrift Shop,” before it became massive, they were putting us in a box. The song almost got too big. People weren’t able to see the rest of the album for what it was. They put us in the one-hit wonder box. And they didn’t give the rest of the project room to live. People didn’t do their research. If you strip away the Kidz Bop remake and it getting played on every radio station, the very core of “Thrift Shop” is a Hip-Hop song. I’m rapping. I’m rapping, well. I’m spitting. The one-bar loop. The 808s. It was one of the more Hip-Hop-sounding songs on the album. It turned into something so big that the origin almost got lost. And because of that, it distracted people from the album and the content that was there.
To read more grab a copy of this issue on newsstands today.
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