[One of the best
parts of being an AmericanStudier in 2015 is the abundance of impressive
cultural works with which we’re surrounded. So for this year’s Thanksgiving
series, I wanted to give thanks for five great works and artists about which I
haven’t had the chance to write in this space. Share your own cultural thanks
in comments, please!]
On two
complementary songs that exemplify the rapper’s identity and appeal.
Seattle-based
rapper Macklemore and his writing partner,
Ryan Lewis, are best known for a trio of songs that focus on being
yourself, even if that self seems to be located somewhere outside of the
accepted mainstream: the silly smash “Thrift Shop,” which
featured singer Wanz and became one of 2012’s biggest hits; the very serious “Same Love” from the
same year, which featured singer Mary Lambert and became the gay marriage
movement’s most prominent anthem; and this year’s return to silly success “Downtown,” which
features singer Eric Nally as well as three
of hip hop’s most senior artists (Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, and Grandmaster
Caz). These songs are distinct and unique in lots of ways (due in part to those
guest artists and in part to Lewis’s ability to craft a new sound for each),
but they all share that central emphasis on embracing one’s own identity and
perspective come what may—a logical thread for a thoroughly independent,
purposefully outside the system artist like Macklemore, who followed his own
muse for many years before hitting it big with “Thrift Shop.”
I respect that
journey and the consistent themes it has helped Macklemore bring to such songs,
but to be honest I’m more interested in the themes of identity he captures in a
pair of lesser-known, complementary songs that to my mind exemplify his unique
perspective and strengths. In “Irish Celebration”
(2010; warning, this one will be stuck in your head for weeks, but in a good
way), Macklemore raps about his national and cultural heritage (his real name
is Ben Haggerty) in both funny and thoughtful ways. Indeed, while the most
famous Irish American rappers are of course the boys from House of Pain, I would
argue that it is “Irish Celebration” which should hold the title as the best
Irish American rap song, as Macklemore’s anthem is far more interested in
examining, critiquing, and also celebrating the unique histories and stories
that comprise this cultural identity. Take this couplet from the end of the
song’s first verse, which has included histories of the Emerald Isle’s complex
relationship with those colonizing Englishmen: “Preach nonviolence but remind
us of the scars/That define us, put a pint up everybody sing a song.” Or this
one, that links Macklemore’s own history of addiction to his culture’s fraught
but unavoidable relationship with drink: “I put down the drink, couldn’t drink
like a gentleman/That doesn’t mean I can’t make a drinking song for the rest of
‘em.” Yup, the clear winner for greatest Irish American rap song.
There’s an
elephant in the room when it comes to that sub-genre of rap, however, and it’s
one that Macklemore addresses head on in my favorite song of his (and one that,
to his great credit, he wrote and recorded very early in his career), “White Privilege” (2005).
Of course in the 21st century there is room for rap and hip hop made
by every type of person in every corner of the world—in a unit on Global
Culture in my IDIS
Capstone course this semester we discussed songs by Psy, Matisyahu, and M.I.A., to name three such artists—but
those ongoing evolutions don’t, can’t, and shouldn’t elide the genre’s clear
and crucial origins in the African American community. And while other white
rappers like Vanilla
Ice and Eminem have tended to address those histories with a combination of
posturing and defensiveness, Macklemore in “White Privilege” engages with them,
and with related issues of cultural appropriation and the limits of identity
and community, with an impressive degree of depth and thoughtfulness. “We got
the best deal, the music without the burden,” he raps in the first verse,
adding, “I give everything I have when I write a rhyme/But that doesn’t change
the fact that this culture’s not mine.” And then in the multi-layered chorus he
comes back to those persistent themes of embracing identity, but without
leaving the history behind: “But I’m gonna be me so please be who you are/This
is something that’s effortless and shouldn’t be hard/I said I’m gonna be me so
please be who you are/But as I’m blessed with the privilege, they’re still left
with the scars.” I’m thankful for the artist who can share both those
sentiments, and many others worth our attention and response.
Last cultural
thanks-giving tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Cultural thanks-givings you’d share?
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