YG and even Kendrick have inaugurated a revival of the early ‘90s G-Funk style, embracing modern production which apes elements of both Dre and more eccentric Compton auteur DJ Quik’s trademark styles. It’s an odd, sprawling song, both wholly out-of-time and in line with current fads. He recalls saving up to get that Caddy (instead of his hometown’s typical “Honda Civic”) before patching in some trap drum cadences and a Schoolboy Q verse.īut his newest single, “Downtown,” is his most explicitly traditional hip-hop single to date, at least since rising to superstardom. 2013’s “White Walls” was his weird tribute to nice cars, focusing on one interest of his which overlaps with typical rap-music subject matter. But occasionally, his desire to interact, warily, with the broader hip-hop climate creeps into the style of his music in more subversive ways. He’s mostly expressed it in interviews, and stunts like the post of the apologetic text to Kendrick after Mack won the Best Rap Album Grammy for The Heist over the undeniable rap-fan favorite, good kid, m.A.A.d city. Macklemore has chosen to deal with his guilt in odd ways. “Thrift Shop” sounded like some retro-ized sax-o-beat shit that could have come out anytime in the last two decades “Can’t Hold Us” was an EDM-tinged dance-floor record which at most pointed to a love for Kanye’s genre-bending, and ballads like the recent Ed Sheeran-featuring “Growing Up” appeal to parents who enjoy positive messages, staying “in touch” and Sam Smith as much as anyone.īut still, as Mackle the younger put it in his 2009 song “White Privilege,” “Hip hop started out on a block I’ve never even been to.” He understandably feels the need to explain himself away somehow - to prove that he is, in his own way, definitely a proud part of the hip-hop landscape and not just a very popular novelty act. Also, he is conscious of the influence he wields, and the conversation he is entering into just by speaking in rhythm, even if he largely functions in some other self-styled, teeny-bopping dimension. Yet Haggerty he still does view himself, seriously, as an MC.
The swagless dance-pop beats, white-boy-delivered hooks and positive, goofy or outright bougie themes are precisely what helps him do those Taylor Swift numbers. Indeed, Macklemore seems to gain mileage for lightly defining himself himself against it. The reason to make this qualification is that his music has always had little to do with anything else going on in hip-hop, either in terms of style or content.
Macklemore, as a bonafide capital-P pop star - a guy who just happens to rap in his songs - more than one of the major figureheads in the rap genre. Most of the world has no problem characterizing Ben Haggerty, a.k.a.
0 kommentar(er)
