Given the Grammys’ contentious history with hip-hop, it’s troubling that they didn’t consider the potential fallout of a white, pop-oriented rapper sweeping awards for Best New Artist, Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Album.
Naturally, all music opinions are subjective, but it’s difficult to argue that in a period when fellow nominees Drake, Kanye West, J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar all released stellar albums, Macklemore deserved to be presented as the defining face of hip-hop today.
My initial reaction was not to inject race in this notable omission of Macklemore’s contemporaries, but doing so would be criminally shortsighted.
The absence of Lamar’s coming-of-age-in-Compton concept album, “good kid, m.A.A.d City,” a brutally sincere album that became an instant classic in the hip-hop community, garnered universal acclaim from countless critics and quickly earned its permanent place in the canon of West Coast rap. His rhymes were meticulously crafted to the point where every syllable served a purpose, and his album managed to achieve the nearly unheard-of feat of producing socially conscious, radio-friendly singles that also flowed cohesively in the context of an entire album.
To be clear, Macklemore himself is not the issue here. He is a talented lyricist, a careful songwriter and a multi-millionaire with a sense of humility that isn’t hackneyed or stale. This year, the Grammys forced him into a position he clearly never wanted.
Everyone with an ear for hip-hop knows Lamar was robbed. However, those audiences with a passing interest or resignation towards hip-hop have been presented with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis as ambassadors of the “safe side” of rap. When the Grammys ignored the successes of their contemporaries, they implicitly painted the duo as the friendly, easily digestible alternative to many black rappers.
After the Grammys, Macklemore posted a picture to Instagram of an impassioned text he sent to Lamar stating, “It’s weird and sucks that I robbed you.” It’s hard not to feel bad for the guy. His awards are a materialization of a problem he anticipated on his song “A Wake,” where he lamented facing “white privilege, white guilt, at the same damn time.”
Macklemore seems to want his music and his passions to stand on their own, to join the same conversation that every other rapper has contributed to. But the Grammys sought to hijack that conversation, injecting a racial narrative that was relatively subtle beforehand.
The good news is that most people hooked into social media already know. While the Grammys have an unfairly loud voice in the musical dialogue, their opinions are becoming less relevant every year. Almost instantaneously, outlets like Twitter and Facebook lit up with harsh commentaries of Lamar’s Grammy snub and loads of sympathy poured to Macklemore for the uncomfortable position he was thrust into.
Increases in Spotify’s traffic post-Grammys reflected the new agency that social media has in defining musical trends. Despite Macklemore’s four Grammy wins, his Spotify hits increased by 65 percent compared to Lamar’s 99 percent increase – likely bolstered by his stellar performance with Imagine Dragons.
Macklemore’s admission of guilt to Lamar only strengthened his image as rap’s unofficial ringleader. Even though the Grammys have yet to embrace hip-hop in all of its manifestations, the day is finally coming where award shows are bowing to the behemoth boon of social media’s influence on cultural trends and discourses.
