Macklemore is back-back and talking about 'BEN'

Don't worry, there’s no relation to Over. Washington rapper Macklemore is far from retired and ready to get all his flowers at once with a new BEN album slated to arrive this week. So it’s only right he chops it up with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe about everything from his newest audio gems to juggling wins and losses.

It’s all about Macklemore on Apple Music 1

While the full-fledged interview is amazing, life goes by fast and so do stories. So it’s all about the key quotes from the conversation from Mack’s discussion with Lowe.

Macklemore Tells Apple Music About His New Album ‘BEN’ and Journey of Self Discovery…

I think that the process of making an album is one where you're trying to get to the core of your own truth, right? You're stripping away layers, you're peeling them back. You're like, okay, who am I? What do I want to say now? And I've been rapping for a long time. 25 years. I started when I was 14 years old. So it's been a journey of a discovery. And I think that my constant answer when people were like, "What's the difference between Macklemore and Ben, the person?" And my answer would always be like, there is no difference. I hold myself to be as transparent as possible. I want to be myself in the music. I think our journey through life is this process of finding out who we are, what is our purpose, why are we here, and what are we going to do with this time? And every album should reflect that.

Macklemore Tells Apple Music About Relapsing At The Beginning of the Pandemic…

COVID hit, and I was coming down here. I was going to rap the album. We got maybe 20% left. Let's go finish it. And I went down. And we were about to get on the plane the next day, and it was like, yo, we might not get back from LA if we go down there right now. It was just about to pop off. At the time, I had a couple years clean, I believe, or two something. I forget what it was. But yeah, I was alone. That's the answer. I was alone. When you're in recovery, a huge part of my recovery is my community of people, is going to meetings, to 12-step meetings, seeing people, giving them a hug, hearing their stories, talking in the parking lot, going out to get coffee. I am reminded of the disease that I have. When I hear their stories, I see them. There's a physicality to it. There's an energy exchange. And it just helps me stay clean. COVID happens. Zoom meetings take over. 12-step meetings on Zoom saved so many lives. Amazing. Shout out to KCB in Detroit. Now I'm on Instagram listening to Zoom. Now I'm checking emails and typing as the Zoom's on in the background. Now I'm not on the Zoom. Now all of a sudden I'm not going to meetings. And for me as an addict, I need to go to meetings. I need 12-step meetings. I need to wake up every day day and be reminded that I had the disease of addiction. It is untreated, and what am I going to do today about it? And I lost that. …I could almost tell you that anyone that's been clean and relapsed can pinpoint what that feels like. It is such a distinct moment where you're there. I have a memory with a pill in my hand and looking in the mirror. (censored) it. 

Macklemore Tells Apple Music About Navigating Wins and Losses...

100% sincerity. I am so grateful for all of the peaks and the valleys, bro. I am grateful for the darkness. The darkness is why I appreciate where I'm at today. I need that duality or to be reminded of how bad it can get. And I look back on the last 10 years in this industry, of navigating it from Seattle, Washington, independently. There's been so many Ws. There's absolutely been Ls too. No one gets away from this thing called life without them. And I treasure those Ls. Those Ls are super important, because I don't look at them as losses. I look at them as lessons. I look at them as, you know what? That pain that I went through when I saw you after The Heist, that era, it transitioned me into Gemini. It transitioned me back into recovery. I was so low. 

Macklemore Tells Apple Music About Getting Clean After The Grammys and a Trip To India...

I remember it was after the Grammys, and my wife and I, my fiance at the time, we went to India. And I look back on that time period, and there was so much fear. And the reason why there was fear is because, again, I was living to escape. I was back. I had been on drugs. I remember a couple days before the Grammys, I started trying to taper off, because I knew that I was going to be dope sick by the time that the Grammys hit. I was relapsing. Yeah. I was relapsing on and off that entire... I was in active addiction that year, and... I remember taking the last pill. We were in Mexico. And trying to time it out so I wouldn't be dope sick. And I was so fucking scared, and it wasn't like what was going to... It was all of the things at once, but the center of it is I had lost my faith. I was living in fear. The opposite of faith is fear. The opposite of hate is love. I was in that place of just, I don't know how to do this. I can't exist without drugs right now. And I want to be understood, and people don't understand me. The minute that I got clean again after India, or in India, all of a sudden, it was like, "Ah! There is it. There's my spirit. I lost that dude. I know exactly who I am. I know exactly what got me here. I remember the magic that makes me who I am." I had forgotten it… it was almost instantaneously, and then the process opened back up.

Macklemore Tells Apple Music About His Desire to Connect With His Audience...

what I truly want is I want to be able to go play music live and have people come. That's what I want. So simple. I want to play music live around the world, and I want people to come, and I want to celebrate with those people that want to come. And I don't care if there are 500 people or 50,000 people. That's what I want, and that's what I've always wanted. That's it. It's going to hit who it's going to hit. The ears that it resonates with are those that were supposed to be there.

Macklemore Tells Apple Music About Exploring a Range of Genres…

…there’s another side of it that wants to make a 80s song in a British accent. There's another side of it that wants to rap with over primo drums. And there's another side of me that's like, let's take a swing at pop. I want to do all of those things. Those are all authentically me. And I think that one of the things in our culture is we like to put people in boxes. We put this artist in a box. We put Macklemore in a box, or whoever it is. And then the minute that they break out of that, it's like, "Hold on. Hold on. That's not what you do.”

Macklemore Reflects on The Challenges of the "Thrift Shop" Era…

Yeah, it was dark. It was a dark, very challenging era. That era was tough, man. It was all the criticism, all the expectations, all the accolades, all the love, all the hate, everything at once. And I spent my entire life being an underground rapper. All of a sudden that changed. And there was an era in that period where it was like, "Wait, hold on. You guys remember what I've done? You guys remember where I came from?" And it was like, "No, my little sister likes your music now. This is wack”. And in that moment, it was really intense… You’re up for judgment from the world, and no one tells you how to handle that. And here we are at the top of the world and I have no idea what the fuck I am doing. And you don't say no. You just say, yes. You do the next show. There's another bag to chase. There's another cover, there's whatever. And you're just going and you're not stopping. And as that's happening, as you're not sleeping, as your mental health, as relapses happening, as I'm trying to hide, that all of that's happening, the rest of the world is talking about you and it was a dark period. It's like, okay, you work your entire life for this moment. Now you got the ball. What are you going to do? Do not go out of bounds. Do not call a timeout. There is no two minute warning. You're just going to go. And that's what we did.

Macklemore Tells Apple Music About New Song “HEROES” (feat. DJ Premier)…

It was one of the first songs that I made in COVID, actually. I had this beat. Wrote a rap quickly, damn near did it in a one take, maybe three. And I was just sitting on it… And I had always come back to them like, I really like this. I just bumped this. I just keep coming back to this. I want to hear it over other records that we're getting priority in terms of our internal conversations. Finally, as we're starting to roll out songs from the album, I'm like, I want to give HEROES a moment. I don't want it to get buried. I want to go out... Primo was down to do the video. 

Macklemore Tells Apple Music About New Song “MANIAC" (feat. Windser)…

Ryan had the hook. Right away, I was just like, well, this is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the night. And I was like, "What's up with this? What are you doing with it?" And he was like, "It's open. It's free. Go ahead. You can write to it." I took it, and the rest is history. I think I like to get outside of my comfort zone. I don't want to rap within five bpm of the track before and the track... I want to do something different. I'm like, what does 143 sound like? What does 160 sound like? What if we did halftime drums? I'm constantly like, you know what, let me get outside, because I know where I think that I sound the best in terms of my rap bpm pocket. I know I'm 100 to 110. That's my favorite pocket. I love hearing myself in that bpm.Maniac was different, and those drums are different. It's some old throwback vibes. And being in a relationship with the Maniac is like I'm in a happy marriage, and I have to dig back to those relationships where I was like, yo, this was toxic, this was crazy, really dig from those past experiences to make that song. I think we all have the potential to be maniacs still. The unexpected is always right there.

Macklemore Tells Apple Music About Loving The Process…

The thing that I come back to, and it's very simple. I love creation. I love making things out of nothing. I love having an idea, and a month later or a week later or a couple of years later, all of a sudden, that little seed turned into an experience that turned into a tangible thing. It was a body of music. It was a golf polo. It was whatever. I love the process of, "I have an idea. Let's make this a reality.” And that is the thing that gets me up in the morning. That is the thing that alleviates the fear, because all you have to do is just keep creating. That's the job. It's literally the best job in the world. Keep making shit.

Macklemore on Letting Go…

looking back at a decade ago where I was at versus today, I think that that has been a massive shift, is accepting life on life's terms. And I don't get to control. I'm not the puppet master. I don't control this. I am literally, as we all are, just a vessel, and we get to start a new day. Where's it going to lead us? And so much of our life is trying to control these little things. If this person just responded that way, if this person checked their email, they never responded to a text. If this happened in my career, that should have never... We go through our entire lives this way with this pollution in our brain versus just being like, "You know what? I am here in this moment, and I am accepting it for what it is. And there's gratitude to be found." Once I can get to that place, life opens up, it unfolds. The studio becomes this oasis. There's no more fear. It's like, yo, we can do anything we want to do.

Macklemore Tells Apple Music He’s in the People Business…

I've been in the music business for a long time, but I'm not really in the music business. I'm in the... I'm in the people business. I'm in the heart business. I am in the business of how do we resonate with one another through sound? That is my job. It's not all this other. It's not like, "Okay, now we need socials and we need..." That's a byproduct of this society that we are living in today that I can choose to subscribe to or not. Now again, I get to do this. And that doesn't come from a contrived contest or some sort of, "Hey, we've thought of this marketing campaign to get... We're going to pay these influencers to wear your or to listen to your song and this 15 second snippet." And no shade to any of that. It's just not why I make art.

Macklemore admits his Grammy changed his life forever

Grammy-winning rapper Macklemore has plenty to talk about these days especially with his new ‘CHANT’ single winning fans over all around the world. The hip-hop star links with Apple Music 1’s ‘The Chart Show with Brooke Reese’ to dish on his game-changing album 10 years later.

Macklemore’s life changed after dropping The Heist

Along with talking about his 2012 LP, Mack also talked about working alongside Tones and I for their new ‘CHANT’ banger and his approach to writing the hit tune.

To make life a little easier, check out full quotes from his ‘The Chart Show with Brooke Reese’ appearance on Apple Music 1.

Macklemore on his Grammy-winning album 'The Heist’

It changed my life in every way. Up until that project, I was an underground rapper. There was a long uphill trajectory of struggle, of playing shows, just trying to make enough money to pay for the gas that it took to get there. If I sold $60 worth of merch, it was a success. That was my experience before ‘The Heist.’ And we really grinded and we built our fan base. And I remember the first week that it came out and getting those sales back and realizing that we had a lot bigger fan base than I think that we had any idea existed. From there, a little song called “Thrift Shop” started to go viral and the rest is history. It was an album that changed everything.

Macklemore on writing his single “CHANT"

I wrote it in different periods, I wrote the first verse last. I had a different first verse for a couple years actually. And I was like, "This isn't quite it." And to me, there's a rebirth energy in it. There's a fighting spirit to it. I wanted to make something, I was writing about this yesterday, I wanted to make something that motivates. Because for me, the page and the pen and the process of being creative is in itself an exercise in overcoming fear. It's an exercise of pushing through. It's an exercise of getting outside of your comfort zone, of striving for greatness. Every time that I step into the studio, that's what it is. And there's hurdles that come along with that. And to me, this was like, "Okay. I'm getting back after taking a lot of time off, after the pandemic, after shows getting canceled, all of these things that have happened." And like, "What do I want to say? How do I want to kick this off?" And that's how it really starts. This is the beginning of a new chapter. And we're right here. We're right here, and we're not going anywhere.

Macklemore on collaborating with Tones and I

Tones is amazing. She had a show here in Seattle. And I went down to check it out. And she had been very vocal in terms of what my music had meant to her. So I wanted to go down and meet her and see what she was all about. And immediately just fell in love with her. She's just a gem of a human, such a good spirit. Obviously, an amazing musician, writer and performer. But just as a human, I was just blown away. So that was really cool. That was a great moment to meet her and to connect. And then we stayed in touch. And then we had been working on this record for quite some time, “CHANT,” and we had the sketch of it. But we were trying to think of who could execute this hook, and Tones was the first person that popped up. I sent it to her, she loved it. And she came to Seattle shortly after that. We got in the studio and the rest is history.