10

Thursday, June 10, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
STATEMENT

Macklemore and his contradictions: the unruly mess he 

has made 

In my middle-school world 

of Little League softball and 
sleepovers, 
I 
found 
myself 

listening to Macklemore’s (and 
Ryan 
Lewis’s) 
discussion 
of 

addiction, 
greed 
and 
failure 

throughout the album “The Heist.” 
Tuning out my parents’ car ride 
conversations and team chatter on 
the bus rides to basketball games, 
I let my headphones become the 
vessel into Macklemore’s much 
darker musings about critical 
issues I had not yet realized or 
experienced. 

No one in my social circle was 

openly gay until I got to high school, 
but “Same Love” introduced me to 
and harnessed my empathy and 
support for same-sex marriage, 
an issue I had no connection 
to at the time. I learned what 
“lean” meant after listening to 
“Otherside” and googling the abuse 
of cough syrup. Prior to hearing 
“Thrift Shop,” Goodwill was only 
a place to donate clothes, not to 
buy them. Before I experienced 
“Wing$,” I never contemplated 
why I preferred Nike over Under 
Armour. Human rights, substance 
abuse and consumption contribute 
to the central themes of the album. 
At the time that I first encountered 
“The Heist” as a relatively sheltered 

middle schooler, I hadn’t devoted a 
lot of time to thinking about those 
things. 
Nevertheless, 
I 
found 

myself feeling a deep emotional 
connection 
to 
Macklemore’s 

philosophy of fighting for gay 
rights and battling inner demons 
throughout “The Heist”, a bizzare 
connection I could not explain 
with my middle-school mind.

Since 
stumbling 
upon 
his 

Grammy award-winning album, I 
have become much more familiar 
with Macklemore and his music, 
from 
the 
nostalgic 
tones 
of 

“Growing Up” and “Good Old Days” 
to the more bizarre sentiments 
of “Brad Pitt’s Cousin” and “How 
to Play the Flute.” I have taken on 
the shared philosophical weight of 
“This Unruly Mess I’ve Made” and 
observed his anecdotal reflections 
on childhood and religion in 
“Gemini”.

At the end of 2020, I found 

Macklemore’s 
first 
full-length 

album, “The Language of My 
World,” 
which 
covers, 
among 

many other topics, his childhood 
observations 
of 
socioeconomic 

strata, his first experiences with 
alcohol and illicit substances, and 
the track “White Privilege” (which 
would be followed by the better-
known “White Privilege II” on a 

later album). The 2005 album’s 
discussion of social issues still 
present and exacerbated by the 
pandemic made “The Language 
of My World” seem like it could 
have been penned in 2020. “The 
Language of My World” fleshes out 
Macklemore’s personal reflections 
of growing up in a segregated 
Seattle as a well-off white kid. 
It 
provides 
compelling 
social 

commentaries, all of which seem 
to be perplexingly embodied by 
the track “Contradictions,” which 
boasts the hook: 

“Consumption, contradiction/
I’m conflicted with being a 

hypocrite/

And through these songs you 

can witness it/

The differences, I admit this 

shit, because I’m just like you/

Walking a fine line between 

saying and living it”

Since my initial middle-school 

musings on Macklemore’s more 
palatable (or at least, commercially 
successful) tracks, I have been 
able to identify the potential 
contradictions of his career and 
artistry.

After 
all, 
Macklemore 
is 

an 
A-list 
celebrity 
critiquing 

those who buy into and practice 
conspicuous consumption in songs 

like “Thrift Shop” and “Need to 
Know.” Conscious consumption is 
somewhat of an unusual position 
to advocate for in popular music, 
and bringing it up seems like an 
admirable undertaking. However, 
he romanticizes overbuying and 
rocking used clothing without 
a mention of gentrification in 
“Thrift Shop.”

Considering the bigger picture, 

Macklemore attacks conspicuous 
consumption in his signature 
song, exclaiming “Fifty dollars 
for a T-shirt/ that’s just some 
ignorant bitch/ I call that getting 
swindled and pimped.” Explicitly 
mentioning the entrapments of 
buying Gucci, he cautions “Trying 
to get girls from a brand?/ Then you 
hella won’t.” By his own definition, 
Macklemore’s been swindled by 
the same systems and propaganda 
he so famously preached against. 
Instagram posts and interviews 
reveal his adornment of Gucci 
and expensive accessories like 
Louis Vuitton duffle bags and 
Rolex watches. Even if the Gucci 
hats and shirts are fake, as he has 
claimed, it is a blatant violation of 
the ideology propagated in one of 
his biggest hits.

Though 
he 
preaches 
from 

a 
perspective 
of 
conscious 

consumption in “Thrift Shop,” 
he also admits numerous ways 
in which he has failed this ideal, 
including his being seduced by 
his lifelong, very American dream 
of buying a Cadillac in “White 
Walls.” 
Macklemore 
describes 

the sentiments attached to the 
purchase: “I’m rollin’ in that same 
whip that my granddad had/ Hello, 
haters, damn y’all mad/ 30k on the 
Caddy, now how backpack rap is 
that?”

Taking a more contentious tone 

towards our economic system, 
Macklemore dedicates an entire 
song, “Wing$,” to chronicling his 
lifelong struggle between having 
a love for sneakers and addressing 
the relationship of such a passion 
with conspicuous consumption, 
socioeconomic 
inequality 

and shallowness. In the song, 
Macklemore looks in the mirror, 
challenging himself: “Will I stand 
for change or stay in my box?/ 
These Nikes help me define me/ 
But I’m trying to take mine off.” 
Macklemore concludes that he has 
learned “For a hundred dollars 
and some change/ Consumption is 
in the veins/ And now I see it’s just 
another pair of shoes.” 

BY LEAH LESZCZYNSKI

Read more at michigandaily.com

Design by Erin Ruark

