Macklemore is Coming to Town

Northwest hip-hop.  Oh, how I miss home.  A center piece of the underground hip-hop movement, Seattle's music scene is unlike any other and its presence is deeply prominent in community culture.  With this comes a widespread appreciation for art, sincerity, and creativity.  However, this scene also embodies a culture of rebellion, sex, and drugs.  One of Seattle's most prided contemporary figures, Macklemore sees the darker side of such deep-rooted culture, and he realizes how great his influence as an iconic hip-hop artist can be.  He recognizes the power popular music holds over the decisions of teenagers and young adults.  Through his music, he strives to reveal the devastation that comes with violence and drugs, rather than glorifying it.  He's got too much integrity for that. Macklemore knows the profound effect his words have on his audience, and he uses them to positively impact society.  Because he understands that if anyone has the capacity to change culture, it's artists like him.  I think Macklemore has something very right here.

What if all contemporary icons recognized their capacity to inspire audiences towards art and sincerity and abandoned the commercialization of sex, drugs, and violence?

My classmates started smoking weed when I was only 14.  One of my best friends was dealing before we reached high school.  On any given morning, 3 or 4 carloads could be found hot-boxing in the student parking lot before the first bell.  I began to understand why my high school was nicknamed "the pharmacy" when one of my closest friends was placed in a local rehab facility for his addiction to oxicotton.  Shortly after, a girl in the class above me was hospitalized for a heroin overdose.  I didn't grow up downtown.  My friends weren't in gangs, our parents didn't own guns.  We were raised in a suburb about 15 miles outside the city.  But all any of us ever listened to was hip-hop.  The lifestyle of Wiz Khalifa's "Young, Wild, and Free" and Mike Posner's "Smoke and Drive" was so appealing because it was so far outside anything we'd ever been exposed to. We didn't understand the danger, the addiction, and the irreversible shift that happens inside when drugs are abused.  It was banned by the school, and our parents, and even the government, but that only made it more appealing.  Rebellion was cool, exciting, exhilarating.  The culture shaped by all our favorite artists was laced with drugs and violence and we wanted to embody the image these icons were produced as.  It's not like marajuana and painkillers was readily made available to us in our high-income neighborhoods; we had to seek it out.  And we did because we wanted to be "in," we wanted the carefree youth, wealth, and fame these songs associated with drugs.


But these songs are wrong, and any artist who's actually lived what they produce knows they're wrong.  They know they're painting a picture that isn't true.  This picture will only change if the artists who created it in the first place paint a new one.  School administration and government regulations can make drugs illegal, but that doesn't make them inaccessible.  In all honesty, their attempt to place rules around our decisions makes the prospect of breaking free that much more attractive.  It's the figures we look up to, the creative minds and media-endorsed artists, that have real control over modern society.  Macklemore is exactly right when he says: "He just wanted to act like them, he just wanted to rap like him.  Us as rappers underestimate the power and effects that we have on these kids." If more artists could comprehend that effect and act on it, our culture could change to stop embracing drugs and violence as the gateway to happiness.  Because it's not.  That "buzz" doesn't bring happiness. Eventually, it will stop keeping us up.  It's not taking us to Hollywood, it's not taking us anywhere.


Thank you to Macklemore and all the other artists out there who have dedicated their work to enlightening audiences to truth.  Thank you for your creativity, vulnerability, and sincerity.  Your impression on our culture is the beginning of much-needed change.


This Saturday, December 17th, Salt Lake City is privileged to welcome Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. In the Venue, 7 pm.  Get your tickets here.  I'll see you there.