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Music

A Brief History of Macklemore Mackling

To celebrate his birthday, we looked at a history of the Seattle rapper doing the literal most.

Today is Macklemore’s birthday but you wouldn’t know it because the 32-year-old rapper and new father has effectively taken the year off. It was a necessary break; the two-year campaign of singles for his and producer Ryan Lewis’s breakthrough album The Heist was exasperating when it wasn’t ingratiating, criticizing hip-hop from a pulpit and then mopping up all the acclaim at award season. Macklemore’s off-record behavior could be just as bumbling, and after a steady stream of media gaffes, many asked if he’d consider mackling less.

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Macklemore took the hint this year and let Iggy Azalea fry in his place, giving a long, wise interview to New York’s Hot 97 about all of the issues his whiteness presents for the hip-hop community in late December of 2014 and essentially vanishing from the public eye. Still, a return to macklical activities from this serial mackler can’t be far off; Mack and Lewis’s follow-up to 2012’s The Heist is expected to be released sometime later this year.

What even is “mackling”? In photography and printmaking, it’s the process of blurring or doubling an image. In rap, it’s the process of being a big dumb theatrically sincere asshole. For Macklemore’s birthday, we’re going to have a look at some memorable instances of him mackling—his greatest mackles, if you will—both to celebrate how far he’s come this year and to remember what horrors he remains capable of.

2000: Starts rapping as “Macklemore.”
“Macklemore” is a nonsensical term the rapper, née Ben Haggerty, came up with for a high school graphic arts class project where he was to invent a fictional superhero. It should’ve died there, but in the year 2000, Ben began recording what would be his debut EP Open Your Eyes and decided to revive the Macklemore concept, laying the groundwork for over a decade of confused mispronunciation. When you pick a rap name that sounds like some kind of mythological Scandinavian child-eating hellion, ideally you come to peace with it confusing people. Ideally you pick spelling and pronunciation that streamline the process of it being spoken aloud in public. Ideally you do not opt to just continue explaining it in interviews.

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2005: Releases “White Privilege.”
Macklemore the type to check his own privilege before you get a chance to. (Sample lyric: “We still own forty acres, now we stole their sixteen bars.”)

2005: Releases “Penis Song.”
Macklemore the type to start a song about wishing he had a bigger dick by informing you that he’s very satisfied with the dick he already has. The flacc’ is always peener on the other side.

2009: Releases “American.”
Satire only works when it’s both sharp and enjoyable to listen to, and “American” off Macklemore’s The Unplanned Mixtape is neither. Questioning your heritage has never sounded so questionable.

2009: Blames Bush for 9/11 on Twitter.
Attention 9/11 Truthers slash People Who Still Find “Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams” Jokes Funny: Shut the fuck up, potentially forever.

2012: Releases “Thrift Shop.”
Macklemore the type to write a song about how it doesn’t take a lot of money to feel good about how you look, make a lot of money off of it, and then start spending more money on how he looks.

2012: Releases “Same Love.”
Macklemore the type to write a rap song criticizing hip-hop’s troubling relationship with homophobia that includes a gay slur in it and not see how his use of the word figures into the same culture of exclusion.

2013: Signs endorsement deals with Dr. Pepper and Cracker Jack’D.
Yes, Cracker Jack has an offshoot snack line called “Cracker Jack’D.” Yes, “Jack’D” is already a thing. Yes, both Jack’D’s offer a wealth of nuts.

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2014: Publishes a photo of himself smiling around the police.
Rappers and police are a historically terrible mix. Unless, of course, there was something about you that made you feel comfortable around officers of the law.

2014: Wins multiple Grammys, causing Kendrick Lamar’s infinitely superior good kid, m.A.A.d city to lose them all.
"White Privilege” comes true.

2014: Texts Kendrick Lamar to apologize for winning.
Dawg.

2014: Publishes the Grammy text to Kendrick on Instagram.
Macklemore the type to win all your Grammys and make sure you know he feels terrible about a system that gives guys like you the shaft and guys like him the keys to the city but still show up to accept the awards and keep them.

2014: Shows up to a concert dressed in a costume everyone else immediately found anti-semitic.
Maybe don’t show up to a concert in gear resembling classic pejorative racial caricature. Maybe actually apologize in your apology for doing it if you can’t bring yourself to not do it. Maybe don’t spend a lot of it making excuses.

Craig Jenkins just realized he pulled this whole thing off without using the word “problematic.” Follow him on Twitter.