Skip to main contentI will freely admit now that last week I had no clue what a phenomenon Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have become in their hometown of Seattle. But as I sat down in one of the few shady parts I could find in the middle of Seattle Center while Bumbershoot 2011 swirled around me, it started to sink in.
Mostly it was the masses of teens that I saw skittering around the grounds in their "My City's Filthy" t-shirts that had Macklemore's name emblazoned on the back. In the back of my head, though, I couldn't shake the idea that they were all being ironic (the t-shirt did have the word Seattle right on the front, too).
Then I stepped inside the KeyArena later in the day. It was packed to the rafters. Buzzing. Young kids pushed to the barricade by the front of the stage clamoring for...well no one was on stage yet. Surely, I thought, they were all here to just survive through the opening act before Wiz Khalifa, got onstage, right?
The lights went down and the place went apeshit. All the folks sitting in the area surrounding the arena's main floor were on their feet, hollering and screaming. And when a wiry blonde man wearing a sport coat, sunglasses, and a Sonics jersey hit the stage with a thousand watt smile on his face...the whole house exploded.
My stalwart editor Casey Jarman says in today's cover story on Macklemore (otherwise known as Ben Haggerty) that he's "well on his way to becoming Seattle's biggest star." Brother, he's already there.
It was electrifying to experience, and you could tell from the look on Haggerty's face, he was feeling it too. And like any good performer, it only fed his fire even more. The 28-year-old MC bounded around the stage at the KeyArena, shedding his jacket within one song, and glistening with sweat after the second.
And it never stopped from there. For a little over an hour, Haggerty, his DJ Lewis, and their backing band comprised of three string players and four horn players kept the energy high, the beats pulsing, and the crowd bouncing nonstop.
As exciting as it was, I couldn't help but feel a little pang of sadness for Portland's hip-hop scene. I can't think of a group here, not even Lifesavas, that could pull in that kind of an audience. Can you imagine Cool Nutz or Luck-One filling up the Rose Garden Arena? It would be amazing, but it's not going to happen.
Why? Well, not to knock ol' Macklemore here, but his stuff reminded me of the Christian rap that friends of mine in high school made me suffer through. It felt like a (pardon the pun) pale copy of the groundbreaking work that his fellow rappers did and are still doing.
Sure, his stuff goes down easy, using samples of the Killers and Red Hot Chili Peppers to smooth the journey even more. But it also doesn't push the envelope at all. It rests comfortably in it, refusing to challenge. I give him full marks for laying his struggles as a human out in his lyrics, and using "Otherside" to speak out against drug abuse. It comes from the heart, but it still felt wanting. These kids might disagree...
WWeek 2015