Macklemore is going through the motions of White shame. Instead of celebrating his Grammy wins, the 30-year-old has been busy apologizing for being a rapper, who also happens to be White.
We get it.
The Seattle native aired out some of that color humiliation in a Hot 97 interview publicized yesterday, saying of his Grammy victory, “It’s the blessing and the curse, a little bit more of the curse.”
There were also empathetic words for poor, poor Kendrick Lamar. “First and foremost, Kendrick [Lamar] is a friend of mine. He’s somebody that I love his music and, in my opinion, had the best rap album of the year, and knowing how the Grammys usually go, I knew that there would be a great chance that we’d win that award and, in essence, rob Kendrick. That’s what happened tonight. It kind of sucks. I think we made a great album. I think that Kendrick made a better rap album.”
The Seattle-rapper has never not been vocal about the fact that Hip-Hop has yet to fully embrace him, and he doesn’t tend to fight the opinions. He also acknowledges race as playing a part in his own success story. What results is a seemingly endless merry-go-round of humble boasting and self-loathing. Just as he’ll school you on his rap credentials in one interview, another finds him confessing, “If you’re going to be a White dude and do this sh-t, I think you have to take some level of accountability.”
In the new The Source magazine, the “Thrift Shop” rapper came right out and said that Lamar deserved the Best Rap Album Grammy over him, and when that didn’t actually happen, the apology tour commenced. The first stop? Lamar’s inbox.
Mack sent Lamar the following text to Lamar after last night’s show:
“You got robbed. I wanted you to win. You should have. It’s weird and sucks that I robbed you. I was gonna say that during the speech. The music started playing during my speech and I froze. Anyway, you know what it is. Congrats on this year and your music. Appreciate you as an artist and as a friend. Much love.”
No matter how sincere publicizing the message wasn’t just good sportsmanship, but another way of fanning the race flames.
We don’t like to talk about it, but there is a “color majority” in Hip-Hop, as there are in other music genres. There are unwritten rules that people outside the color lines chose to abide by, which for Macklemore means asking for racial forgiveness as much as possible. But when is enough, enough?
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