hip-hop

Macklemore

1 festival played

Seattle rapper who put 'Thrift Shop' and 'Can't Hold Us' at number one with no label behind him, built alongside producer Ryan Lewis. Big hooks, plainspoken verses.

Macklemore is Ben Haggerty, born in Seattle in 1983 and raised in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood. He started writing lyrics at fifteen, drawing on East Coast underground hip-hop acts such as Wu-Tang Clan, Nas and Talib Kweli, and spent years releasing music independently, including the mixtapes Open Your Eyes, The Language of My World and The Unplanned Mixtape, before his partnership with producer Ryan Lewis broke wide.

The Heist arrived in 2012 without a major label behind it, and "Thrift Shop" became the first self-released song to top the Billboard Hot 100 in more than a decade. "Can't Hold Us" followed it to number one, making Macklemore and Lewis the first duo to open with two consecutive chart-toppers. "Same Love," recorded with Mary Lambert during Washington's campaign over same-sex marriage, became the record's third single, and the album went on to earn four Grammy wins, including Best New Artist.

The writing tends toward the direct and the autobiographical, with verses about sobriety, family and the mechanics of making a living from music sitting alongside the jokes. Live, Macklemore works as a frontman more than a booth technician, leaning on horns, live drums and long call-and-response passages.

He and Lewis followed The Heist with This Unruly Mess I've Made before Macklemore struck out largely on his own. "Glorious," released in 2017 with Skylar Grey, marked his first major single without Lewis producing, and the solo album Gemini followed that September, reaching number two on the Billboard 200. His third solo album, Ben, arrived in 2023 and peaked at number eighteen.

Read more

hip-hop