Album Review: Kanye West – The Life of Pablo

Posted on February 22, 2016 by bgibs122

Do you ever think about an album’s soul?

Let me rephrase that: do you ever think about an album’s essence; what’s conveyed by all the album’s parts–vocals, lyrics, instruments, sounds, textures, emotions said and unsaid–and how that resonates (or doesn’t) with you? I don’t normally think of it in these terms, but the subject stays on my mind because there is nothing more important about an album than how and what it communicates with a listener, and how that registers with them. This is something anyone can do, and I’m not saying has to be some deep, analytical breakdown of every note; if you can–I don’t know–describe Beauty Behind the Madness as being “kinda fucked up”, or 25 as “all the feelings,” and can take the first step in explaining why you think that, you’re already there.

I’m thinking about this soul stuff because The Life of Pablo is an album fixated on the well-being of its soul. It’s an album that begins with “WE DON’T WANT NO DEVILS IN THE HOUSE!” and means that in the most serious way possible. While its predecessor Yeezus was all rampaging id, this album is about getting saved, y’all. Kanye described The Life of Pablo as “a gospel album with lots of swearing”, and while much has been made regarding the duality of soul cleansing enlightenment and vulgar content, this album’s soul goes deeper than that. It’s not just the oscillation between “This is a God dream” and “Sometimes I’m wishin’ my dick had a GoPro” or the musical double-take of Metro Boomin producing on a track with gospel. The Life of Pablo is so obsessed with its spiritual health because the album knows its very soul is corroded.

Let’s stay on the “gospel album” track for a moment. Choirs and choir samples litter The Life of Pablo, but they always sound off. There’s a wonky chord in the progression for “Ultralight Beam” that means that gigantic choir is never quite as fluid or as free as you’re expecting, and Kanye himself sounds damaged with a soft slur during his verse. For as radiant as the song is (and with a stellar Chance the Rapper feature straight out of Surf, that’s saying something), the song’s ultimately a prayer for salvation it doesn’t believe itself worthy of. Likewise, when an AutoTune-drenched Kanye sings “I just want to be liberated” during “Father Stretch My Hands”, the choir sample beneath him is deformed and frayed, like it’s trying to attain uplift through sheer exertion, but slipping. The somber piano chords on testimony track “Low Lights” are straight from church, but have this surreal touch (mostly through a ton of reverb on the vocals) that smokescreens just how serious we’re supposed to take the whole enterprise. The main synth on “Waves” sounds like a heavily processed choir, and just once the gospel of ‘Ye sounds like it might actually reach happiness, albeit with serious alterations.

The Life of Pablo writ large is a demonstration of exertion while slipping. Kanye’s previous albums–yes, even the abrasive drill of Yeezus–arrived fully formed. Be it the electro-pop glitz of Graduation, frozen synths of 808s & Heartbreak, or symphonic flourishes of Late Registration, Kanye’s albums have always excelled at getting from A to B musically. You can’t say the same for The Life of Pablo, where there are recurring musical ideas, i.e. fluidity in song progression, interplay between new takes and samples, and a lack of reliance on verse-hook-verse structure, but as part of the album’s corrosion, these ideas aren’t fully realized. Instead, these songs are almost all slapdash creations where each beat, verse, sample, or hook is put together with just enough sturdiness to get you to the next one. Sometimes, like on the massive sound of “Famous” or aggro synth and drum punches of “Feedback”, that slipshod energy can be charming.

But it only goes so far. I went back and relistened to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy after spinning The Life of Pablo a few times, and I was reminded of how precise the former is. The entire album has impeccable pacing, and it’s so deliberate in execution that I’m surprised it doesn’t come with a stage manager. TLOP‘s loose charm only works if it’s built on solid foundation, and when you hit the album’s underdeveloped midsection (roughly “Feedback” to “FML”), it sags immensely. You get the feeling “Lowlights”/”Highlights” together are supposed to be a centerpiece about faith, family, fame, and achievement, but thanks to the rough execution and weak lyricism, it feels again, corroded and inert.

A large part of what renders “Highlights” airless is that there’s no real getting around “I bet me and Ray J could be friends/If we ain’t love the same bitch/Yeah, he might have hit it first/Only problem is I’m rich” as the first lyric to a verse. It wouldn’t matter if the rest of the song was “Lost in the World”, “I Wonder”, and “Never Let Me Down” in one, that line’s just going to be a lightning rod. More so, all the Rihanna hooks, Nina Simone, ebullient dancehall samples, and Swizz Beats ad libs in the world aren’t going to keep my enjoyment of “Famous” from being torpedoed by “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/Why? I made that bitch famous.” TLOP pushes Kanye’s possessive misogyny to the front, and coupled with a handful of ugly tweets lately (his “you let a stripper trap you” shot at Amber Rose care of Wiz Khalifa and “BILL COSBY INNOCENT !!!!!” if we’re getting specific), I’ve put a bit distance between me and him. The misogyny is more damning here than it was on, say, Yeezus because the worst bits of The Life of Pablo and its promotion are disparaging toward specific women; you can wince all day at “Put my fist in her like a civil rights sign” but at least it (probably?) didn’t happen.

And I could understand saying shit like this if there was a larger point, but The Life of Pablo is underwritten just enough that any lyrical cohesion gets lost. See “FML”, for example, where the idea of staying of faithful in a room full of hoes leads to a near breakdown, but outside “You ain’t never seen nothing crazier than/this n**ga when he off his Lexapro“ it doesn’t quite land. But, combined with “Real Friends” and “Wolves”, “FML” forms its own act that’s stayed together through the album’s numerous renames and rewrites, and hints at a Yeezus meets 808s isolationist record. It’s not one that believes in the power of gospel or explicitly thinking about its soul, but one painfully aware of the consequences fame has had on well-being and relationships of all types. Who knows how much of that album was actually made, but between these songs’ musical clarity and narrative cohesion–plus “Wolves” existing in some form or another for a year–I’m given to believe this arc is the many different forms of The Life of Pablo‘s genesis.

Hell, I’m not even technically reviewing the album in its full form. The way this review’s been written so far, you’d think the album ends with “Wolves”, but it actually has an interlude and four more songs. I’d argue, though, that these are bonus tracks. “No More Parties in L.A.” isn’t just the best of these, but one of the album’s best songs: like “Otis” with Jay-Z, it’s just a blast to hear Kanye and another great (here it’s Kendrick Lamar) go on and on over a breezy sample. “30 Hours” is okay mostly for the beat and Andre 3000’s zen backing vocals, and “Fade” is more inconsequential than anything else. Then there’s the previously released “Facts”, which is a low point for the album even with beefed up production. The Life of Pablo‘s already been an experiment in what an album looks like these days, so if  you want to cut and paste these songs into the record proper, you have that choice.

The Life of Pablo itself is about choice and want. The album’s aware of the twisted state of its soul, and wants to give in to redemption and uplift, but as we see with “FML” and “Freestyle 4”, the temptation of earthly pleasures can be too much. The alternate album cover depicts the madness over this choice perfectly: inside the cover’s peach-orange square are an older looking photograph of a black family posing for a wedding, a filtered Instagram-esque booty shot of model Sheniz Halil, and “WHICH/ONE” typed like a mantra. When The Life of Pablo engages with this choice–like on “Ultra Lightbeam”, “Father Stretch My Hands”, “Feedback”, “Real Friends”, and “No More Parties in LA”, it’s thrilling and occasionally breath-taking. At other times, you can almost see what the album wants to be, but it loses against itself and Kanye’s misogyny. The Life of Pablo models itself after Paul the Apostle, fitting as Kanye, Saul of Tarsus, and anyone whose followed Kanye for this last month have inevitably cried out the same thing during frustration at their choices: so help me God.

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2016 Grammy Recap

Posted on February 17, 2016 by bgibs122

It didn’t have to be like this.

Okay, fine, because to watch the Grammys is to be in a perpetual state of disappointment, maybe it did have to be like this, but this year’s death march through Music’s Biggest Night felt more crushing, if only because there was tangible hope that the Grammys had learned this year. Kendrick Lamar walked in with 11 nominations! The Album of the Year category was made of five genuinely good albums! The Big Four categories (Album/Song/Record of the Year+Best New Artist) weren’t overwhelmed with terrible options! The performance roster had sure, some questionable picks, but Gaga doing Bowie! A live Hamilton performance! Adele singing live as a warm up for next year’s domination! Shit, maybe even LL Cool J won’t be entirely awful!

But, as Pitbull and Robin Thicke cavorted under the credits, I just felt relieved to be done with another tedious ceremony whose occasional flashes of greatness couldn’t support a three and a half hour run time for a measly eight telecast trophies and maybe four memorable performances. The night started as a slog, briefly picked up, and then spent its second performative half in fits and starts.

I’ll touch on a few performances and awards in a bit, but first, can we acknowledge that the Grammys’ tribute/in memoriam format is dangerously close to outdated? Last night had five whole performances dedicated to deceased stars. I’m not saying that Maurice White, Glenn Frey, David Bowie, B.B. King, and Lemmy didn’t deserve them (although you have to wonder who Lemmy pissed off to have that Hollywood Vampires bullshit send him up), I’m saying that as we start losing icons from the 60’s and 70’s who are now in their 60s and 70s, the Grammys will either need to A. start getting real choosy about who gets that Gary Clark, Jr. number, and who stays in the slideshow or B. Run a separate in memoriam broadcast just to give everyone their due. This year’s iteration has already drawn ire from Natalie Cole’s estate for leaving her out, and the problem’s only going to get worse from here.

Usmagazine.com

These tributes stick out the next day because while they come from a good place, they’re usually where the telecast slows to crawl. You always get the feeling that the performers are held hostage by these songs, resulting in tributes that are okay at best, but never memorable. Lady Gaga’s David Bowie medley had the potential to be a standout, but for all the technical spectacle she employed and fun she was having, the act felt oddly hollow. Bowie’s always meant a lot to Gaga, and I imagined her doing a thoughtful tribute instead of running through shorthand versions of his hits (and no “Life on Mars”!). Even if she’d just sang “Heroes” at a piano that changed shape or some shit, that would have worked. Joe Perry, Johnny Depp, and Alice Cooper’s Hollywood Vampires act was the other noteworthy tribute, but only for how bad it was; I’ve lamented mainstream rock’s death, but that hack performance made me think mainstream rock kind of has it coming.

But those numbers were still preferable to the show’s first half. I know its old hat to hate on the Grammys for being ~boring~, but dear God did this year start as a drag. Taylor Swift opened with a bloodless rendition of “Out of the Woods”, setting a slow default tempo for the next hour and a half of performances. True, a disparate Lionel Richie number featuring John Legend, Luke Bryan, Demi Lovato, and Meghan Trainor was never going to raise the roof, but even normally game acts like The Weeknd and Ellie Goulding didn’t bring the thunder, let alone duets by Carrie Underwood and Sam Hunt and Tori Kelly with Jason Bay.

Instead, this LA broadcast had to import some energy from New York. I haven’t really made a space to write about it here, but I’ve hopped on the Hamilton bandwagon in the last month or so. And the cast absolutely nailed the opener last night, hitting every point of a fairly intricate number (it might be the dormant theater kid in me, but Lin-Manuel Miranda’s shoot-to-kill delivery on “Alexander Hamilton” was fucking gold). They earned every bit of their Best Musical Theater Album award.

Musicfeeds.com

Then, right after Hamilton was Kendrick Lamar’s show-stealing performance. Lamar’s annihilated the Grammys before with sheer technical ability, but he upped his game again last night. It was confrontational, passionate, black as fuck, and alive; both “The Blacker the Berry” and “Alright” were reworked just for the live setting, complete with lyrical edits to avoid censorship and still get the message and intensity across. But, the real showstopper came when Lamar debuted a new song/verse that stripped away the bonfires and neon tribal paint, and just saw Lamar rapping his face off about self-doubt, anger, and Trayvon Martin directly into a quickly cutting camera. It was the sort of thrilling, without a net performance that Lamar’s specialized in since at least “Control”; you cannot watch the last minute of this video and tell me this man is giving anything less than his all.

And yet it wasn’t enough for recognition.

Alright, awards time. First, the good: Mark Ronson won Record of the Year for “Uptown Funk!”, a song that still sounds like a million bucks. I was personally betting on D’Angelo’s “Really Love”, but “Uptown Funk!” was just as good a choice for production values. The electronic category was a mess to begin with (so I’ve heard), but the rest of the genres did pretty well: Taylor Swift got Best Pop Album, D’Angelo picked up a few R&B awards, The Weeknd nabbed an armful of trophies, Alabama Shakes dominated in rock and alternative, and Lamar got the rap awards sweep. It was, on balance, pretty good for the pre-cast awards.

Where things got bad in a hurry was with three of the Big Four. Best New Artist went to Meghan Trainor, a performer who is easily pedestrian at best (say what you will about Sam Hunt, at least he’s novel). I was expecting Lamar to lose Song of the Year to “Blank Space”, but instead, he lost to “Thinkin’ Out Loud”, an okay song, but the world’s laziest “Let’s Get It On” rewrite imaginable. Like Trainor for Best New Artist, “Thinkin’ Out Loud” was the category’s cynical choice of bland classicist cheese; at least “See You Again” would technically be a win for a rap song, and “Girl Crush” could earn progressive points if you do enough mental gymnastics about its homoerotic undercurrent.

Then you get Taylor Swift’s victory for Album of the Year. I feel like I’m flogging a dead horse at this point, but I’ve always found 1989 a respectably good but unfulfilling pop album that’s not nearly as slick or as transcendent as it wants to be. It’s smartly written and tastefully made, but ultimately too fussed over, too slight, to be realized. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly is similarly concerned with being Smart and Tasteful, but wins on the most basic level of having stronger songs performed by someone at the top of their game. It’s weird to say, but the heady jazz-rap album is more fun to listen to than the synthpop romance one.

Before going into her rightly kickass acceptance speech where she came for whatever’s left of Kanye West’s soul following his most recent display of misogyny, Swift said that she was the first woman to win Album of the Year twice. I get why she said it; it’s a hell of an accomplishment and she’s earned it, but it also read as being more pro-Taylor Swift than pro-woman. It got me thinking that Taylor Swift might be the first woman to with Album of the Year twice, but it’s also been 17 years since a non-white woman won the award, and that both of Swift’s now historic wins have been more recent than the last time anyone who wasn’t white won the award. Kendrick Lamar, Alabama Shakes (led by the black Brittany Howard), and The Weeknd might have cleaned up in their respective genres, but none of them won big awards. It was hard to shake what Lamar rapped while staring into the camera earlier in the same spot: “You never liked us, anyway.”

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Album Review: Rihanna – ANTI

Posted on February 2, 2016 by bgibs122

The biggest question during ANTI‘s protracted rollout was a new one for Rihanna: “What on earth is this thing going to sound like?” Rihanna’s career is built on blockbuster pop jams, and here she is rejecting “Timber” and “Lean On” while promoting “American Oxygen”. She passed on something like “We Can’t Stop”, which is such a Riri song you don’t have to strain at all to imagine her on it, and instead sang the shit out of Kanye and Paul McCartney collab “FourFiveSeconds”. Of the songs teased for this record, only the sneering, glitchy “Bitch Better Have My Money” fit Rihanna’s “give no fucks and take no shit” persona she had been crafting on Twitter and Instagram over the last few years.

And then ANTI arrives, and none of those are on the album.

But even that decision makes sense because ANTI is about subverting expectations that will inevitably end in disappointment. Note that this is a comment on the content of the album, not the quality of the content. As should be obvious to anyone whose paid attention to Rihanna since Unapologetic, there aren’t any chartbusters here in the vein of “We Found Love” or “Rude Boy” (even Unapologetic‘s singles were more about smolder than explosion). Instead, ANTI sustains one long, subdued mood; a night in that keeps the curtains closed, the house door shut, the lights dimmed, drink in hand, and weed to be rolled then smoked. It’s still a pop album, but one filtered through gauzy, electronic R&B whose hooks arrive unhurried.

Nowhere is this displayed more prominently on the dancehall inflected lead single “Work” (work!). Rihanna sounds completely at home on the track, playing with the hook’s repetition until the syllables break down like she’s gleefully singing along to her own song alone at home. It doesn’t scream hostile takeover as a single, but the gentle low-end thump and tropical flourishes should (hopefully) give “Work” a long chart life; even a negligible Drake verse doesn’t hurt the song too much. Potential second single “Kiss It Better” is covered in those watery 80s synths and plush electric guitar sounds that Miguel’s always been fond of, and benefits greatly from putting Rihanna’s vocals front and center. The melody’s solid, and Riri is able to play a lyric like “Man, fuck your pride/Just take it on back, boy/Just take it on back, boy” with just the right balance of frustration and anger and regret and plead to sound believably (relatabily) conflicted.

If ANTI is, on some level, about disappointment, it’s the let down that comes from romance. And, for about four of these songs, it’s the foregone disappointment of scrolling through your phone’s contacts late at night to see who might be up, mentally letting each scenario play out, and deciding none of these will go well. “Kiss It Better”, “Woo”, and “Love on the Brain” all mine this vexation for drama, but none do it better than “Needed Me”, likely ANTI‘s best song. Over an austere, frigid DJ Mustard beat that’s free of his trademark twinkling synths, Rihanna owns the shit out of some dude in his feelings because she, I don’t know, used to call him on his cell phone, saying “Know you hate to confess/But you needed me.” The Drake comparison’s there not just because “Tryna fix your issues with a bad bitch/Didn’t they tell you that I was a savage?/Fuck your white horse and your carriage” is enough to send every dude in a Drake song running, but because sonically, Rihanna nails the moody, atmospheric but grounded aesthetic in one song that he’s been chasing since at least “Marvin’s Room”. She hits that same hazy sound on sex jam interlude “Yeah, I Said It”, just to prove the success wasn’t a one-off. That night in alone means talking to people you wish were (or weren’t) there.

That night also means being a little indulgent and a little aimless, and in this regard, ANTI doesn’t always work (work, work, work, work.”) “Desperado” would be a decent third or four single jacked up with extra synths on another Rihanna album, but here, she sounds unsure if she wants to take off with the song’s natural momentum. Acoustic ballad “Never Ending” and distorted Travis Scott collaboration “Woo” both remind me of the weaker material on Beyonce’s self-titled album: okay and inessential while mostly skidding by on the album’s aesthetic and the performer’s capabilities. Rihanna’s cover of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” could have been indulgent–a pop star covering an indie rock deep cut is almost indulgent by definition–but honestly, she sounds mesmerized on a track where Kevin Parker always sounds tired, like she just enjoys singing this song.

And the same can be said about her throughout ANTI, especially on the album’s last section. Rihanna’s taken more grief than most pop stars for vocals, but she sings the shit out of “Close to You”, “Love on the Brain”, and especially on “Higher”, a two minute track built on a dusty string loop and gospel piano where Riri goes into full blown whiskey-soaked rasping plea. It runs the risk of being too much, and an entire song in this howling style would be grating, but as is, “Higher” is the most impassioned drunk dial you’re gonna hear. The pumped-up doo-wop of “Love on the Brain” deploys her “powerhouse mode” vocals tactically, and works better for it–if nothing else, the song’s proof that modern takes on girl group soul and doo-wop don’t have to be terrible (hi, Meghan Trainor!)

So, getting back to “What’s ANTI sound like?”, the answer is it sounds like the album Rihanna wanted to make. And, despite the occasional misstep, it’s quite good, and proves she can do more than singles pop. For all the romantic preoccupations and longing, this is still a solid record to put on and just enjoy by yourself; the vibe here is don’t kill the vibe (it’s also perfect after a work day). It might get less radio play than her other albums, but it doesn’t sound interested in generating hits, anyway. ANTI suggests for the first time, Rihanna might have a life outside the radio. Hopefully we just don’t have to wait four years to see what happens next.

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Being Macklemore Is Complicated: “White Privilege II”

Posted on January 26, 2016 by bgibs122

Before getting to “White Privilege II”, you have to understand that if any facet of Macklemore (Ben Haggerty)’s career were different, we wouldn’t be here.

If Macklemore was a white rapper from Detroit or Queens or (I guess) Sydney, Australia instead of a white rapper from Seattle, we wouldn’t be here. If he had rap industry cosign from someone like Dr. Dre or T.I. and didn’t operate in a DIY vacuum, we wouldn’t be here. If his party banger was the single that resonated with White America and not the two that by intent or by accident threw hip-hop writ large under the bus and inadvertently positioned Mack as rap’s Great White Hope, we wouldn’t be here. If dude was just a better artist (I’ll come back to this one), we probably wouldn’t be here.

But, because life is a series of events we don’t control, here we are in world where Macklemore and Ryan Lewis released “White Privilege II” the only way a song like this could be: by lobbing it on iTunes at midnight last Friday like a molotov cocktail and clearing the area as fast as possible. “White Privilege II” is a nearly 9 minute mess consisting of 4 wordy rap verses, 2 spoken-word collages, a choir-esque interlude, and a sung outro, all laced with roiling self-loathing, guilt, and cloying purpose. Its tone pivots from slam poetry to After School Special to screaming in the hotel room, each leaning all the way in on Macklemore’s patent earnetness. His scattered approach extends to Ryan Lewis’ production, where solemn, leaden piano gives way and snaps back from a jazzy freakout and vaudeville vamp while occasionally tossing that chanting choir in. “White Privilege II” is, in other words, a lot.

Before anything else, let me say this: “White Privilege II” is worth listening to at least once. It is, at the very least, a genuinely felt piece of art from someone who wants their heart to be in the right place, and is willing to try very, very, very, very hard to say something meaningful, even if they aren’t sure what. It is much better than saying nothing. I’m not going to over-praise Macklemore by calling the song “brave”, but putting it out in pre-release is a gutsier move than it just popping up most of the way through This Unruly Mess I’ve Made.

What I’m not sure of yet is if “White Privilege II” works or not. Part of that is going to be if the song hits that resonance that “Same Love” or “Thrift Shop” did with time, but largely it’s because I’m not sure if this sprawling, restless thing is a noble experiment or just a failed one.

It absolutely doesn’t help that the song’s first leg is also its weakest. This is the slam poetry one, where Macklemore raps about going to a Black Lives Matter protest and feeling awkward. It’s slight because Macklemore wrings his hands over the perceived oddness of being a white dude at BLM event without exploring where his unease comes from, or wonder what it’d be like for black protesters (part of this might come down to perspective. It’s really hard for my black self to resist going “Poor Ben, you felt uncomfortable at a protest.” He went, and that’s great, but dude). There’s some righteous anger there, but Macklemore doesn’t gain much by swinging hard at police brutality.

He finds much more to sink his teeth into during the song’s second and third verses, the former of which is the “screaming in the hotel room” section. Like Kendrick Lamar on “u”, Macklemore is absolutely ripping himself to shreds here as an exploitative faker over freaked out horns while teetering on the edge of self-destruction. It doesn’t quite match “u” in execution (those first few shouts of “LOVING YOU IS COMPLICATED” will never not destroy my soul temporarily), but it’s an arresting performance by a guy who dreads what he’s created.

From there, we get to the most inspired and the only part of “White Privilege II” that’s downright compelling: the “old mom” verse. Macklemore raps from the point of view of a middle-aged white mom praising him for being “The only hip-hop that I let my kids listen to…” and the verse is 1. performed in such a pitch perfect way that I have to think Macklemore has met people like this who terrify him, and 2. a crueler rebuke of Macklemore than what anyone else will ever come up with. It plays to Mack’s strengths as a storyteller while handily connecting white audiences’ reaction to “Thrift Shop” and “Same Love” to their ire for Black Lives Matter protests.

Unfortunately, this is only half of “White Privilege II”, which turns into a chore for its last 4 and a half minutes. You get two sound collages: one of which is a tedious read-through of “I’m not racist” racist shit you see on Facebook, the other is activists talking about Black Lives Matter as a liberation movement for all, and what role white people can take in helping society. Macklemore delivers his #TruthBombs white privilege verse with the same seriousness he used in “Same Love” (ctrl+f “Verse 4” here; it almost sounds better read) that, while it’s great and necessary, feels tiring, and by the time Jamila Woods descends from “Sunday Candy” heaven to sing the outro after seven and a half goddamn minutes, you’re left reeling.

I might be wrong. As a black man, I am fully aware that “White Privilege II” is not written for me. I still maintain it’s a song worth listening to and engaging with, but I also think for how hard it tries, “White Privilege II” is a well-intentioned failure.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: who is this song for? Because I don’t think it knows. The first third or so of it scans almost like an apology to black people or hip-hop fans while the rest is pretty plainly directed at Macklemore’s white soccer mom club. But addressing these audiences this way is baffling: the black community and hip-hop heads have never especially fucked with Macklemore, and the white privilege/supremacy verse itself (y’know, the song’s entire point) is in the last one here. It’s nearly counter intuitive.

Earlier, I said “White Privilege II” wouldn’t exist if Macklemore was a better artist. There are a couple of levels to that. If he was a better rapper or sharper lyricist, he probably would have beat back the appropriation criticisms by now (see: Mathers, Marshall). Likewise, because of his perceived lightweight status, just approaching “White Privilege II” requires some critics/listeners to drop the “Oh, fuck that guy” reaction that comes with news relating to Macklemore. And a lot of the song’s messiness comes from Macklemore being self-aware enough to acknowledge his white privilege, but not self-aware enough to use that privilege in a smart way (see: The infamous Screenshot).

That critical lack of self-awareness is what kneecaps “White Privilege II” chances at reaching mass culture. The song’s most intended audience–let’s say the old mom in the third verse–was introduced to and knows Macklemore from “Thrift Shop” and “Same Love”: songs that sure, have a message, but are pop songs first. They followed a verse-chorus-verse structure with repeated hooks and manageable run times, and, because they fit comfortably next to P!nk and Bruno Mars singles on top 40 radio, were able to win over the masses over time by invading the country’s shopping centers, waiting rooms, and Steak and Shakes. Meanwhile, there are like, seven different reasons why “White Privilege II” won’t get any radio play, and that’s before you get to the content. Risk-averse pop radio isn’t going to play it because it’s a nine minute track without a hook whose structure borders nonexistent, and rap radio isn’t going to play it because it doesn’t hit hard enough  (plus “it’s Macklemore“). On an academic level, it seems apt to fail, as well: it’s been discussed by people of color far more than white people.

So, in the end, “White Privilege II” is like its creator: stuck in the middle between exasperatingly too much and woefully too little, losing with the wrong people, winning with the wrong ones, besieged on every side, but trying so very hard. Macklemore seems almost trapped by his fame and success in a way he finds deeply unsettling, and “White Privilege II”, his shot at getting out, looks like it was thrown away. Maybe it’ll make more sense within the album’s context, or maybe “White Privilege III” will arrive with a clearer sense of purpose. But for now, we’re left with his song, Macklemore’s unruly mess. We heard he was conflicted.

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