Who Is Macklemore?

The Seattle MC talks The Heist, high-profile collaborations, and more.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

The Pacific Northwest is very familiar with Macklemore. He's spent years building a fan base in Seattle. Alongside DJ and music director Ryan Lewis, the pair has established themselves as the faces of Seattle’s hip-hop scene. Their DIY-driven music has gone national thanks to a tireless work ethic and co-signs from rap stars like Mac Miller, Big Sean and Schoolboy Q.

Macklemore—real name Ben Haggerty—is about to add one more accomplishment to his resume with the release of his official debut, The Heist. After building an initial buzz with 2009’s The vs. EP, the 29-year-old has plenty of new experiences to share three years later.

Two successful singles have set the stage for The Heist—“Same Love” which addresses homophobia in hip-hop and his bargain hunting anthem, “Thrift Shop.” A slew of previous releases made the album too, including “Make The Money” and “Wings.”

Early this morning, Macklemore announced that The Heist hit No.1 on iTunes. "WE FUCKING DID IT!!!!!!" he tweeted.

Knowing something like this would happen, we recently decided to find out Who Is Macklemore? He told us about his early days in the group Elevated Elements, learning to rap, his thoughts on Seattle's hip-hop scene, meeting Big Sean, and much more.

As told to Eric Diep (@E_Diep)

Growing Up in Capitol Hill

Not Available Interstitial

Macklemore: “Capitol Hill is known as the hipster area of Seattle. It has a diversity in terms of there’s a large gay population on Capitol Hill. It’s an area with a young people and a lot of nightlife. It’s probably the biggest area in terms of just kicking it.

“It’s still like that. Growing up, I grew up really fast. 11 or 12 years old, you know, I was going up to Broadway with friends and kicking it and that’s when I kinda started getting into trouble as a kid. Skateboarding, graffiti. It came with kids kicking it that were much older than me, a lot of drugs and just kind of growing up fast. I think that was kind of Capitol Hill-as kind of central Seattle-as you can get. And I was just a young kid trying to get into whatever I could. It really was just skating, drinking, and writing graffiti.


 

I went to Garfield my freshman year. Same high school Jimi Hendrix went to. Bruce Lee. A bunch of people—Ish from Digable Planets, Shabazz Palaces, Quincy Jones. So a long list of people who have had a prominent influence in Seattle’s music scene went to that high school.


 

“My parents were there. I would say it had to do more with the music that I listened to and kind of my older influences. They kind of tried to stop it. I went to a high school, I went to Garfield my freshman year. Same high school Jimi Hendrix went to. Bruce Lee. A bunch of people—Ish from Digable Planets, Shabazz Palaces, Quincy Jones. So a long list of people who have had a prominent influence in Seattle’s music scene went to that high school. It was kind of an open campus for to kind of wild out at that age. My parents didn’t have control over it.

“Garfield is extremely diverse. You know the central district historically back then it was becoming gentrified. It was definitely in the process of being gentrified but when I was in high school it was predominantly a black neighborhood. Even by the time I graduated in 2001, it had a changed. Now it’s way different. Now it’s predominantly a white neighborhood.

“I went to Garfield for only one year. And then I went to another school called Nathan Hale that is in a predominately white neighborhood. [It’s] kind of middle class neighborhood in the North end of Seattle. Then through Nathan Hale I went to Seattle Central Community College and did Running Start back at Capitol Hill. So I had a very eclectic mix of the high school experience.


 

Hale took me out of my environment. I didn’t really have friends there. I never really liked it. It made me focus on music. That’s when I really didn’t have else to do. I kind of stopped smoking weed at school. It just became more about writing raps.


 

“Garfield was just a wild school. The teacher had giving up before they had even started. Classes were hella disruptive. Nathan Hale was more tamed. I needed a school like Nathan Hale. Because being kind of the kid was getting into drugs and was rebelling against whatever my teachers said or whatever my parents said, getting into fights. All the typical stuff that kids do, you know, I think it was a big part because I wanted to do it. It was a big part because those were my friends and everyone was kind of doing it whoever I was kicking it with.

“Hale took me out of my environment. I didn’t really have friends there. I never really liked it. It made me focus on music. That’s when I really didn’t have else to do. I kind of stopped smoking weed at school. It just became more about writing raps and focusing on music.”

Learning to Rap Through Cyphers

Not Available Interstitial

Buying His Own Equipment to Rap With

Not Available Interstitial

Macklemore: “The greatest thing I ever did in terms of my career was saving enough money to buy my own equipment. Because it’s one thing to freestyle with your friends and get high and kick raps. It’s another thing to make songs. To cultivate songs. Because those songs figure out who you are as musician. You hear them back. You hear what you are doing well. You hear what you are doing bad. You can grow with that in progress. I think that was the biggest thing, biggest advantage, I had in terms of becoming a musician. Like [being] a professional musician was able to hear myself back and really work on song structure. Not just writing raps but writing songs. That was just because I had my own equipment.


 

I think that was the biggest thing, biggest advantage, I had in terms of becoming a musician. Like [being] a professional musician was able to hear myself back and really work on song structure.


 

“I was 15 when I went to Nathan Hale. I didn’t have any money. I sold a little weed and started with a two-track. Went to a two-track to a four-track. Went to a four-track to an eight-track. That was kind of the beginning of it. I started making beats, too. That was another big part was my own production. I couldn’t really rely on anybody. That was the biggest thing—being self-sufficient. I haven’t really thought about it for a while, but that’s basically the origin of kind of what we do now. Just being 100 percent self-sufficient. So we don’t have to rely on other people. I didn’t want to rely on other people. I didn’t want to holler at producers about beats. I didn’t want to buy beats. I didn’t want to work around somebody else’s schedule recording. I wanted to do it on my own. Whenever I wanted to do it.

“I worked at the zoo, actually. [Laughs.] The Seattle zoo. I worked at Burger King and Pizza Hut at the zoo. At the time, I am not proud of any of this, but this is the real story. I used to take money from the cash register. Because my manager at the zoo was like this 40 year old woman who was a huge weed smoker. She used to, you know, take a couple of bills a day. She kinda taught me how to do it and that was kind of my side income in terms of putting that money towards recording equipment. Granted, I am not proud of it. But that’s kind of how I started.

“My dad worked for a company that made office furniture. And there was some sort of like it almost looked like a tiny refrigerator. He brought one of those home. You had to sit down in it. It wasn’t big enough to stand up. And we called it the ‘Hot Box’ because you’d close it. Literally, it was like getting in a refrigerator that wasn’t turned on filled with foam. Fools used to go in there and come out profusely sweating. That where I really started to hone the craft. It was in my bedroom. My parents were super chill.


 

I worked at Burger King and Pizza Hut at the zoo. At the time, I am not proud of any of this, but this is the real story. I used to take money from the cash register.


 

“I had that rough couple of years. The fact that I was at home making music even though my friends would walk around the block and get high and come back. At least, we were at home and not like out in public doing dumb shit and getting arrested. They were happy that I was just at home making music. I would do it all the time. I would stay up hella late at night. I go to school off of three hours of sleep and just record. And make just many songs as I could. I was doing graphic arts at the time at Nathan Hale. I was designing my own flyers and designing my own CDs. And kind of just the graphics and the branding of it, that was the beginning of all of that.”

Musical Influences

Not Available Interstitial

Macklemore: “I sucked [at rapping at first]. [Laughs.] I was really bad. You know it’s funny; my high school album is like you can find it on the Internet which is really embarrassing. Nah, I was really bad, but I was always a decent writer. I went through puberty like anyone. My voice didn’t start changing until I was probably like my late teens or my 20s almost. You just were trying to find yourself.

"I was listening to a lot of West Coast underground rap like Hieroglyphics and Project Blowed and Abstract Rude. All of those guys were really styling at the time, just crazy styles and cadences. And that’s what I really inspired by. The styles ranged all over my previous work. But again, it was about having equipment and figuring out who I was as a person. And that translated into the music.


 

I was listening to a lot of West Coast underground rap like Hieroglyphics and Project Blowed and Abstract Rude. All of those guys were really styling at the time, just crazy styles and cadences.


 

“Before that, I grew up listening to predominantly Dre and Snoop. When I was kid, I listened to West Coast gangster rap. In middle school, I listened to a lot of Biggie, Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang, Fugees, and stuff like that. By the time I got into high school, that’s when I got into the West Coast underground stuff.

“I don’t really know what drew me, it was just different. Just the styles were so different back then. They were completely unconventional. The MCs seem hella free. There were going all over the place. There was a lot of dope crew albums. Freestyle Fellowship and Hieroglyphics, they have such a diversity in terms of style within the groups. That’s what I was about. I was in a group in high school. You know, just flipping as many styles as you could do was like the dopest thing at the time.

“My high school rap group’s name embarrassingly enough was Elevated Elements. It was a bunch of spiritual, lyrical, ferial rap. But it was dope. Being in a group, it also made me want to be self-sufficient. I was like, ‘Fuck these dudes.’ They are not about their business, or you know? And not that the talent wasn’t there, but again, I just wanted to be controlling and work as hard that I wanted to work. And you can’t rely on somebody else’s work ethic to dictate how to live your life.

“But it was great. That’s how I learned how to perform. I’m still friends with pretty much all those guys. One of them lives out here in New York. I see him pretty much every time I come out here. We are still great friends. We came up rapping together. There is so much history there. I’ve been rapping over half my life at this point. So there are just a lot of great memories and hilarious blackmail-able songs on hard drives stored away in closets and shit.”

Getting the Name Professor Macklemore

Not Available Interstitial

His First Time Performing

Not Available Interstitial

Recording The Heist

Not Available Interstitial

Macklemore: “This album has taken two and half, three years to make. It spans a wide variety of different places I was at in my life. I think in terms of breaking down the concepts of it, I rather have people just listen. But, it’s a very personal album. It's me. It’s who I am. It’s who I’ve been in the last three years.

“You know, that person has changed and evolved. But for the most part, I think what people have enjoyed about my music is the core of it is absolutely the same. It’s being honest. It’s sharing myself in a way that brings the listener into my experience, my human experience. That’s from the emotional stuff from the funny stuff from everything in between. But it’s a piece of art that I am really proud of. I think it showcases a period of time in my life.


 

You want to work on it forever. You want to keep going. You never want to put a period at the end of the sentence because it can always be better. 


 

“You want to work on it forever. You want to keep going. You never want to put a period at the end of the sentence because it can always be better. We eventually had to put a stopping point on it. I think we did it at the perfect time. Now, it’s going to a new chapter of press, putting out music videos, then a tour, and then an album.

“I can’t rap about overdrafting and living in my parent’s basement. I’m not that person right now. I think that’s the advantage of taking a time in a project versus rushing it. There are times when I didn’t feel like I had anything to rap about. No concepts were coming. If you are consistently doing the same mundane routine everyday. That’s just focusing on your career, and how to get bigger, how many fans you had, how to connect with them. If that’s the only thing you are doing, your songs are going to be limited. There were definitely portions of this album where I was like, ‘I am writing the same songs over and over again. I am not breaking out of it.’ But you just have to live life and have different experiences. Push yourself to have those experiences.


 

There were definitely portions of this album where I was like, ‘I am writing the same songs over and over again. I am not breaking out of it.’ But you just have to live life and have different experiences.


 

“I allowed myself to do that in the last six or seven months. But it was difficult. I think that’s what all artists struggle with that’s why they have like the sophomore slump. From their first critically acclaimed album is that you get comfortable. Your life isn’t as interesting when you are comfortable. When you are not going through that shit. That shit that writes the songs. Those struggles that turn into pieces of art that people can relate to on a heartfelt level. If you are not experiencing that, it can be challenging for a conceptual writer for myself to dig something up to write about. But we had the time to do it fortunately. And I really pushed myself to think outside the box in terms of the concepts that I wanted to approach on the project.”

Seattle’s Hip-Hop Scene

Not Available Interstitial

Meeting Ryan Lewis

Not Available Interstitial

Macklemore: “Ryan Lewis was six years old at that time. [Laughs.] He’s a bit younger than me. We met each other around ‘06, ‘07. He had a couple beats on MySpace that I had listen to. He had hit me up about a photoshoot or something. He was a photographer. But we connected on a couple songs, but for the most part, we were just friends and he was my photographer.

“I just watched him get better. He’s somebody that has a lot of the same characteristics as me in terms of his work ethic and his eye and his ear. How the attention to detail that he puts in his art. I haven’t met a lot of people like that just scrutinized everything like I did. And I just watched him get better. When I first met him up until he started working on music. Like, ‘This kid is getting crazy.’ He had great ideas. He was a song maker not just a beatmaker. He made songs. That’s what really inspired me to start working with him on that level.


 

He wasn’t somebody that had quantity. He was someone that had quality. I was like, ‘Wow, these are really intricate pieces of music.' That was what I was interested in.


 

“It just happened gradually. I can think of a couple beats. They wouldn’t mean anything unless you knew the beats. I just remember hearing the layers and the textures he was coming up with. That was a big thing that separated him from other people. I was always about drum sounds, textures and certain vibes. Ryan really [did] get that and we had a really similar aesthetic in terms of what was dope and what wasn’t in terms of texture. And he had a made a batch of new beats. Again, he wasn’t somebody that had quantity. He was someone that had quality. I was like, ‘Wow, these are really intricate pieces of music.' That was what I was interested in.

“Also, just the originality behind it. Ryan grew up listening to hella different types of music. He was like in a screamo band when he was a kid. I like only listened to hip-hop, so he had this other kind of world of inspiration to derive from. I could hear that with his production.”

The Concept of “Same Love”

Not Available Interstitial

Macklemore: “I knew that I wanted to write a song about gay rights. About homophobia in hip-hop. About the Catholic church where I grew up. I grew up in the Catholic church. I have two uncles that are gay. I have a godfather that’s gay. I grew up on Capitol Hill in a gay neighborhood. And yet I also grew up in the hip-hop community. The hip-hop community and the Catholic church both being known as homophobic communities. And so I had an interesting upbringing in terms of my lens on the issue.

“I was raised to be tolerant and open-minded by my family. I wanted to address an issue particularly at the time when I wrote it, no one was bringing it. It was still completely acceptable. It still is acceptable to call people “faggot” and say “that’s gay” in the hip-hop community and just in pop culture in general. In the youth culture.

“My mom sent me this piece from CNN about a kid who killed himself that was 12 years old, 13 years old. He was getting bullied at school. You know, it's becoming an epidemic. I wanted to write about it. I started to write about the perspective from that kid. I played it for Ryan. I spit it for Ryan. His feedback was, ‘It’s good writing, but it's not your story.’


 

It’s been 100 percent positive from the gay community, which is the co-sign that I care the most about.


 

“I actually really like it, too. So it was kind of like, ‘Damn, I got to start all over.’ I thought I really painted a picture. He was right, it wasn’t my story. He said, ‘You have a story here, but you have to find it. You have to find your voice about this issue or I don’t think this song is going to work.’ And within the week, I started writing to the beat again and it just came. It was one of those moments where it was like, ‘Oh yeah, talk about what the fuck I’ve been through. Why am I overthinking this?’ Just speak from the heart. Talk about growing up. Talk about when you thought you were gay. Why you thought you were gay. Talk about the stereotypes. Talk about the church that you were raised in. Talk about the hip-hop community that you were raised in. And the song wrote itself.

“It’s been 100 percent positive from the gay community, which is the co-sign that I care the most about. It’s crazy. I don’t think I have a lot of gay fans prior to “Same Love.” Not to say that I do now either. But, you know, getting stop in the streets of Seattle and people thanking me for speaking on a issue that’s so personal to them, that’s one of the greatest achievements you can have as a songwriter. It’s writing music that becomes somebody else’s medicine. In some capacity. I think that “Same Love” has that effect on certain people.

“The other greatest thing about “Same Love” to me is that the youth generation that are saying ‘faggot’ or are saying ‘that’s gay.’ Or putting people down for that sexual preference, they are like, ‘Before “Same Love” that was me and this make me think twice about this issue or gay marriage.’ They are just opening up about being more tolerant people. The fact that a song can do that is the ultimate experience for a songwriter is to write one of those type of records. And that’s what “Same Love” is getting a lot of the feedback that it is.”

Working With Schoolboy Q on “White Walls”

Not Available Interstitial

Macklemore: “Q and I met at SXSW two years ago. Like a year and a half ago I guess. We were performing at the same show. We just chopped it up afterwards. We both watched each other’s set. We were feeling each other’s music. Kept in touch and I sent him one record. I didn’t hear back immediately. I was like, ‘Nah, that might not be the song.’ Shortly afterwards I was like, ‘I don’t like that song.’ I hit him up I was like, ‘Yo, that’s not the record.’ He was like, ‘I was feelin’ it. But it’s a little bit different than the shit I am used to.’ Q and I have way different styles.


 

That was the main thing with any sort of features we did for this album. I didn’t want them to be forced collaborations. I didn’t want it to be like, ‘Have my manager hit up your manager and we can figure it out.’ Q’s my homie. That’s how the best music is going to be made.


 

“He came into town to do a couple of shows. We were just kicking it. And the next day, we got into the studio and I played him a couple of beats. A couple of song ideas I had. He ended up picking a beat, the concept that I had was about Cadillacs. The song is called “White Walls.” It’s one of my favorite tracks on the album. It’s got my homegirl Hollis who sings the hook on it.

“It’s a song that you wouldn’t expect from me, but it’s completely who I am. I think Q and I balance each other well on the track. That was the main thing with any sort of features we did for this album. I didn’t want them to be forced collaborations. I didn’t want it to be like, ‘Have my manager hit up your manager and we can figure it out.’ Q’s my homie. That’s how the best music is going to be made. And I think that’s how that record turned out. Real organically, and not forced. It sounds that way. I didn’t want to go the route of paying for features and trying to do favors. Industry stuff. That’s corny to me. That’s not that way music should be made.

“I would like to [shoot a video.] He’s down. It’s a matter us of figuring something out. I know Q is down. I talked to him. He’s with it. It’s a matter of being at the same place at the same time. I am going on tour. I know that he’s going on tour. But, we’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t want to do the typical rap Cadillac video that’s been done 5,000 times. But at the same time, I do want to have that aesthetic of some classic rap shit with some cars in it. I want to do something creative with it that hasn’t necessarily been done. We’ll see. I am not sure yet.”

Working With Ab-Soul on “Jimmy Iovine”

Not Available Interstitial

Meeting Big Sean at This Year’s Bumbershoot

Not Available Interstitial

Working With Allen Stone on “Neon Cathedral”

Not Available Interstitial

The Shark Face Gang

Not Available Interstitial

Macklemore:“It started out as kind of a joke. Just playing on the fact that everyone has their own little squad or their own little gang. You know, [their] fanbase. And then the next show that we did like the next day, there were kids in California that showed up in homemade shark T-shirts and the sharks had Irish bandanas on it over their mouths.


 

I met some dude in Switzerland actually. That had my face tattooed on his bicep. That was next level.


 

“We were like, ‘Damn, this is crazy.’ Immediately people gravitated towards it. That’s just really our fanbase and we have some of the most loyal and devoted fans in the world. The people that ride and see the show now five, six, seven, eight times. Have every single piece of merch. People that just really ride and believe in what we are doing. It’s really just a way to squad up and put a label on the music that we make and the people that are part of our family.

“I met some dude in Switzerland actually. That had my face tattooed on his bicep. That was next level. There’s a lot of tattoos. There’s a lot of lyrics. Those are probably the craziest. To get my face tattooed on your bicep is fucking nuts.”

The Future

Not Available Interstitial

Latest in Music