Fuck Ed Sheeran. Mack was always real

He might sometimes be cringey, but he's genuine.

Yeah 100%, never liked the hiphopheads take on him at all. He is the definition of what tey say they want, independent, outspoken, talented, puts his producer on top billing, features up and coming artists, invested in the culture.

Ed is halfway there then.

I was a hip hop head when he came out but NOT on the subreddit so take it with a grain of salt. I think it was two things:

1. The rapping is what makes it "hip hop" but it's basically a different genre. Not nearly as different than Bare naked Ladies' rap sections but still very different. And his music is (was?) pretty mid by hip hop standards. Trying to compare mackelmore to one of their darlings like MF DOOM is just...not fair if hip hop is your only criteria.

2. The framing around his rise to fame was so, so bad. No fault of his own but you had white guys saying shit like, "I dont like rap but this mackelmore guy is great" and the more racist "this is how poor white people act" (in reference to his breakout single). The media sure didn't help, the fact that he was white was somehow noteworthy.

So r/hiphopheads had the whole world telling them that this Macklemore guy is the greatest rapper of our generation and they reacted hyperbolically.

I get it. It's like everyone telling a LOTR fan that Star Wars is the greatest fantasy story of all time....actually that might be too much of a stretch but hopefully you get my point.

I wrote this while listening to Aesop Rock FWIW

I'm not entirely sure I agree on the genre note, he was dropping mixtapes in the noughties shouting out Wordsayer. Of course the rapping makes it rap but there is a reason you will James Blake on the same subreddits. In a genre where Earthgang, Tyler, Lupe,Mac Miller, Frank Ocean, IDK share a genre with Ka, Wu, Nas, Kanye and the Fugees without a second look, not to mention more out there acts like Grip, bodycount, digable planets, Dram, clipping... I think to question his place in the genre is to reinforce that skin colour is a topic for review.

Absolutely on the framing, he got a dose of people saying he was "one of the good ones" type shit. I just liked his variety in features and beats, it wasnt trend hopping it appeared earnest and honest and along the way he was consistently on the side of people.

Honestly I think nowadays (thanks to the internet), genre labels are pretty useless. Nothing is siloed, everyone is influencing everyone. But hiphopheads was/is very...uhh, obnoxiously protective of the definition with a heavy dose of herd mentality. And as you say, completely inconsistent.