• Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    i really thought for a second that this was one of those times where i was too autistic to get that it was a joke, but no, apparently macklemore figured it out. palestine-strong

  • ComradeKingfisher [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    Seems like he didn’t just stumble into it, dude’s been on the right side for a while

    heartening to see Macklemore return to his roots. before he popped off decade ago, he was running in anti-capitalist radical circles in the west coast & did few fundraiser shows for us (grassroots anti-colonial, anti-capitalist migrant justice group). movements keep us grounded.

    Love and respect to the west coast artists then and STILL holding it down for liberation, like Gabriel Teodros,  Abyssinian Creole, Khingz who introduced me/us to Macklemore and invited him to be part of our events and into community & movement spaces.

    https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia/status/1787643511451562328?t=Xg3Kdho0mP8ARXFyHPyMYQ&s=19

    • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      7 months ago

      I think he is genuine, but if I were to tell someone a decade ago that the Thrift Shop guy will outflank the Labour/Democratic party on the left on race issues and Palestine, I don’t think they would believe me.

      • QueerCommie [she/her, fae/faer]@hexbear.net
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        7 months ago

        That’s because all people listened to on that album was thrift shop and can’t hold us. Now listen to Make the Money, Jimmy Iovine, A Wake, and Gold, and tell me he doesn’t seem like a leftist. Better yet, listen to his earlier work where he’s talking about cultural appropriation and the opioid epidemic.

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      Reminds me of how Psy was revealed to be singing metal songs advocating for the killing and torture of American soldiers as revenge for the murders of Koreans and Iraqis before he got famous

      • aqwxcvbnji [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        Psy was revealed to be singing metal songs advocating for the killing and torture of American soldiers as revenge for the murders of Koreans and Iraqis

        Hahaha, no fucking way. Can you link that?

  • Cromalin [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    props to him for just saying straight up “i’m not voting for biden he’s complicit in genocide”

    really makes everyone else who isn’t even making a statement look like cowards when fucking macklemore does an entire song dedicated to palestine and just saying the damn thing

    • Dessa [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      He was a briefly popular white rapper like a decade or so ago. He was never amazing but got played a lot and people got tired of him. I don’t think he was complete garbGe, bit he definitely got the white rapper treatment. Then he just disappeared from the public concipusness.

      His hits were about gay people deserving better treatment and about how he shopped at the thrift store cuz that’s how a lot of people out on the streets dressed and that there’s notjong wrong with that.

      At best, a likable socially-conscious cornball just stole the spotlight from rap’s biggest feud

    • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      7 months ago

      So he’s a white rapper whose number 1 hit from a decade ago opens with

      Walk into the club like “whaddup, I got a big cock”

      His second had a line that said he was “somewhere between Rocky (Balboa) and (Bill) Cosby”, shortly before the allegations of SA became widespread. Not quite MF DOOM in terms of lyrics.

      Both hits were really popular with hot couch guys, dance clubs and frat bros.

      So people kind of assumed he was either apolitical or worse yet, a chud.

      But then he came out with a pro BLM song during the George Floyd protests, and more recently he called for a ceasefire last year before Bernie and AOC did.

      • Cromalin [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        7 months ago

        his one big album also had a (cringey straight guy trying to be a good ally) song where he talked about how he was super pro-gay rights, so i assumed he was a lib but i never thought he was a chud

        I remember doing the math like, “Yeah, I’m good at little league.”
        A pre-conceived idea of what it all meant
        For those that like the same sex had the characteristics
        The right-wing conservatives think it’s a decision
        And you can be cured with some treatment and religion

        Man-made, rewiring of a pre-disposition
        Playing God, aw nah, here we go
        America the brave still fears what we don’t know
        “God loves all his children” is somehow forgotten
        But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five hundred years ago
        I don’t know

        If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me
        Have you read the YouTube comments lately?
        “Man, that’s gay” gets dropped on the daily
        We’ve become so numb to what we’re sayin’

        Our culture founded from oppression
        Yet, we don’t have acceptance for 'em
        Call each other removeds behind the keys of a message board
        A word rooted in hate, yet our genre still ignores it
        “Gay” is synonymous with the lesser

        not exactly the first brick at stonewall but for a cishet dude in 2011 it’s pretty good

        • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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          7 months ago

          I kinda remember vaguely feeling like “hmm, this could be a genuine but goofy attempt at allyship or a cash grab” probably due to the fact that the opening bars of the song were him talking about himself, who isn’t gay. But I guess in retrospect it really wasn’t important and he does mean well.

  • Tabitha ☢️[she/her]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    Does Macklemore have a reputation for bad takes or something? I’m only aware of his anti-Bush song, anti-consumerist song, that random pro-body acceptance line/scene in that one song, and I’m not even a fan.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      He’s good politically, just corny. He’s never been known as a particularly good rapper, and you can’t really be remembered or have any kind of legacy as a white rapper unless you have something better than just good politics to bring to the table. See: Aesop Rock. Also strong left political positions, but what elevates someone like him to being respected (even if only in the underground) is his caliber as a writer and his 500 IQ flow. Macklemore never had anything like that to build a reputation on, commercial success on a couple of tracks aside.