Macklemore: The Unplanned Mixtape (2009)
The Mariners sadly did not manage to make it to the World Series, but game 7 of the A·L·C·S is still pretty damn close—todays recommendation is here to represent for all of the Seattle fans. The Unplanned Mixtape is, as its name suggests, an informal release of five (or, in some cases, ten) tracks which represent some of Macklemore¦s finest early work. The five principal tracks are all solid in my book :—
“The Town” is easily the best track on the album and (i·m·o) one of Macklemore¦s best songs ever for its ability to capture the place, mood, and community of Seattle. There are a tonne of references that you may not get if you aren¦t up on the scene, but here are a few of the important ones :—
The name of the track is itself a reference to the Seattle hiphop community, which locally referred to itself as the Town.
My Philosophy was a hiphop column in The Stranger, a Seattle newspaper. Many Seattle hiphop acts of this era will make reference to The Stranger and its column as a sign of “making it” in the Seattle scene.
“Mr Mayor, why would you enforce an ordinance?” is a reference to the Teen Dance Ordinance in Seattle, which effectively banned all nonschool dance events for teenagers in the city from 1985 to 2002. People who aren¦t from Seattle tend to think of it as a haven of grunge and indie rock, but fail to understand that these genres only succeeded because they targeted older audiences and thus were unaffected by the ordinance. In contrast, newer music scenes like that of hiphop strongly depended on youth participation and were severely damaged. As all Seattle hiphop acts in the 90s and 00s knew, the reason that the northwest was absent from national conversations around hiphop was because of legislation like this making it very difficult to build a scene.
I recommend watching the music video for “The Town” as it provides imagery of the faces and streets that characterized Seattle hiphop at this time. See also the Sabzi remix. And, for what is hopping in Seattle hiphop more recently, take a listen to Grynch, Greg Cypher, RA Scion & Gifted Youngstaz in “Rebuild”.
“Church” is a fairly unassuming but competent track glorifying hiphop which is boosted by the appearance of Geologic from the Blue Scholars. Blue Scholars are another classic Seattle hiphop act who will definitely be covered in more depth on this blog in the future.
“American” is a satire piece cautioning Seattle liberals against feeling too cosy after Obama¦s victory in the 2008 election because the underlying cultural issues of the Bush era did not vanish in the aftermath. How well it lands for you will probably depend on how well you remember the early years of the War on Terror and how much tolerance you have for white dudes satirizing the homophobia, Islamophobia, and anti·immigrant sentiments of other white dudes. For clarity, “Aberdeen, Washington” is the name of a town a few hours south of Seattle. The fact that the protagonist of the song roots for the Dallas Cowboys is not intended to indicate that he is from Texas, despite what commentators on Genius might try to tell you.
“Fallin” is an angst track. Macklemore is pretty good at these, which you might not realize if you only know him from his bangers; he is less corny than usual when talking about heavy shit and the structure, flow, and production are all competent and well‐executed on this one.
“And We Danced” is a fun party song, produced by Ryan Lewis, of the kind Macklemore became famous for. There¦s not much to say about this one, but it makes a nice closer and a good contrast after the more sombre tones of the previous track.
If you click the Bandcamp link above, you¦ll notice an additional five tracks on top of the five mentioned above. “At The Party” and “The Club” are, in my opinion, skippable, but the others are solid :—
“North By Northwest” is actually a Blue Scholars song, remixed here by Jake One and featuring new bars by Chev, Geologic, Macklemore, Nissim Black, and Thig Natural; this is an ensemble piece showcasing some of what the Town is known for.
I think Macklemore¦s performance is a bit disappointing on “Keep Marchin” and “Letterhead”, but they succeed on the strength of their features: Xperience, Sapient & Illmaculate. It¦s worth mentioning that The Long March is the name of a classic 2005 Blue Scholars album.
Of course one cannot mention Macklemore and Seattle sports with·out acknowledging that they all made motions of cutting ties with him after he shouted “fuck America” at a pro‐Palestinian rally. This is, of course, after his release of the amazing “Hinds Hall” and “Hinds Hall 2”, which you should definitely drop everything to listen to if you haven¦t already.
“We are aware of the incident and agree with the other teams in town: Sports and music should connect, not divide us,” Mariners vice president of communication Tim Hevly reportedly said in a statement to the station. “We continue to monitor and research latest developments.”
Sure, sports and music should bring people together, but the Yankees still have a ballteam, so I¦m with Mack on this one. (See also: “Fucked Up”.)
Favourite track: “The Town”. I swear I tear up like every time I watch that music video. Music, man.