Many turn to music as a way to
express emotions, as well as something to turn to in times of stress of
hardships. For an artist, creating music that successfully resonates with the
listeners can be challenging – they want a positive response to their music, as
well as something that pushes them to publish more songs. Something else that
helps an artist’s popularity can be the
uniqueness of them; someone who sounds the same to many other artists may not
gain as much of an audience because they are lacking something that sets them
apart.
A hip-hop artist who does an
astounding job of this is Macklemore. He is a rapper from Seattle, but takes
his rapping to a new level. He raps about subject matter that has never been
touched on before in rapping; these include equality for homosexuals, personal
drug stories, and controversial political material. The honesty and courage he
exhibits through the lyrics in his songs is moving. He focuses on topics that
many other current rappers either avoid or belittle. Listening to the way he
raps makes him so respectable, and he has created a new turn for modern rapping
in the fact that he raps about real life issues, problems that many listeners
can relate to and appreciate, which has helped to make him as successful as he
is.
Macklemore and his producer Ryan
Lewis have been producing amazing music for years, and his popularity is
continuously growing. What makes him so different is that he raps about real
issues, real problems, and real experiences. He understands that what he puts
in his songs can influence people, and has seen truly awful things happen
because of the effect from what artists put in their songs, and he wants to
change that and make a positive difference in the world. He genuinely
appreciates each and every one of his fans, and it is very apparent that he
puts his heart and soul into every song he writes.
This is Macklemore’s personal blog,
where he posts pictures of his daily life, interesting news, tour dates, and
music links. It’s a great page to use to follow him, and stay current on what
he is working on. Through this page there is also access to the merchandise
store, and other media and information about his crew.
This is an extremely powerful song,
called “Same Love,” is the most recent song Macklemore announced and published.
It tells the story of some of his personal experiences and feelings regarding
homosexual relationships and marriages. In the lyrics, he mentions how he is
frustrated with many current rappers using derogatory terms to talk about
homosexuals, and that it is important for it to be more widely accepted.
“Otherside” is another inspiring
song from Macklemore. This is the A Cappella version, which helps bring out the
honestly and realness of this song. In it, he talks about how the media and
singers/rappers can have such an impact on whoever listens or views what they
publish. He talks about personal experiences with drugs, explaining how such a
dependency on them can negatively impact the user’s life. It’s a moving song
that stresses the importance of negative influences from both the media and
drugs.