Perfect Heist Hot Color 1400

[Nicholas Mahendra]

He introduced himself as Ben. He and Jamila Woods, a poet and singer from Chicago who sings the song's final lines, each took their place at a microphone. We spent the next hour getting into how the song came to be, what it was like writing it, what they think of the response, how Macklemore has internalized some of the criticism he has earned in the years since his breakthrough album, The Heist, made him a pop star and how that affects his work.

Audie Cornish: Ben, this is your second song on this subject. The first time you did a song called "White Privilege," in 2005, it was really from the position from within hip-hop as a fan, right? Talk a little bit about that.

Ben Haggerty/Macklemore: Yeah. It was, at the time, an observation: I was observing the cultural shift of hip-hop music in terms of who was going to the shows, who was making the music, who was kind of at the forefront in terms of sales and in terms of touring. And I was observing it from a place of, "This is very different from when I first started to attend hip-hop shows. This is very different than the music that I grew up listening to. It has changed drastically." And I wrote the song from that perspective.

And since then, we have seen the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the incidents that sparked it. "White Privilege II" actually starts with someone joining a procession of marches, at what I assume is a Black Lives Matter protest. I don't know if this is something you actually experienced?

Haggerty: Yeah, it was. It was the night of the Darren Wilson non-indictment. We were in the office huddled around the computer screen, and I remember feeling extremely frustrated and angered, that feeling of "How is this happening again?" and not really knowing what to do. I ended up driving to a meeting, [but] I sat down in the meeting and immediately felt this restless, "I need to do something. I should go back." I left the studio and drove by the police precinct, and there were people assembled outside.

Now, you guys didn't really know each other before this, and having any kind of cross-racial discussion is hard for most people in their regular life. Jamila, when you were first invited to collaborate, what were your initial concerns?

Inherently, the system in which the song operates is flawed. Inherently, my place in talking about this is going to have contradictions. How do I do this from an authentic place, knowing that it should be called out, knowing that it is never going to be perfect, but knowing that, at the end of the day, it's more important for me to say something than to remain silent?

There are critics of the song who are like, "This song is not fun." Was there ever a moment when you thought, "I need a little sugar to make this medicine go down. I need to make this a 'Thrift Shop' in order to sell this particular message"? Or was it more a sense of, "You know what? Here we are."

But if you're trying to reach the widest audience, could that have been the call? There's a part in the song where you describe a mother approaching you and saying, "You're the only hip-hop that I let my kids listen to." Did you feel like you needed to reach that crowd?

Haggerty: I don't think that this subject matter is built for easy listening. Or accessibility, in terms of playback value. I think that that would be disingenuous to the content of the record; if we tried to make some sparkly pop record out of a song about police brutality, that would have been off-base.

Haggerty: I think it has distracted from the message. We live in a world where things move very quickly on the Internet, and I watched the conversation shift from white privilege to, "Did he dis Iggy Azalea?" I think it's a lot easier and a lot more comfortable for mass media to grab onto something like a potential dis or someone calling somebody out, versus the issues that I was trying to get at in this record. And it's a deflection. It's a distraction.

Woods: Yeah, I don't think it's necessary to call yourself an activist or to go to protests in order to be considered a part of hip-hop. But participating in hip-hop culture, you have to understand the history of hip-hop and how it was created as a way for people of color who were living in a disenfranchised community to have a voice and to really empower themselves. And so there's a way in which, as a white artist in hip-hop, in the system that's created to have white people feel comfortable or relatable, there's erasure of the history of what comes with hip-hop. So it's not necessarily that you have to be an activist, but just to be mindful of the broader culture that hip-hop is and how to remain authentically engaged in that. Hip-hop is also about talking about where you come from, and kind of being authentically you, and so I think that's the most important thing.

Haggerty: I think that Iggy Azalea, like myself, has used hip-hop to her benefit. And that is her right, and that is my right, to be able to make art that speaks to us. But it is important, as Jamila said, to understand the history, and to come from a point of view that is true to who you are. You don't need to be an activist, but I do think that it is important to realize how whiteness operates in terms of pop culture: the immediate platform that we are given as white artists, whether it be on the radio, or with program directors, or people that are buying our music, or people that are coming to our shows. It is important to realize that we immediately have privilege in those spaces that people of color don't have access to immediately, and to educate oneself about the systemic, the systemic reasons behind that. And that's not to say that Iggy Azaela shouldn't rap, or that I shouldn't rap, but there's a certain amount of accountability that I think is important if you are going to participate in the culture.

You guys are very calm in this room, but the creative process is a journey. What were the moments of the song that you clashed, that you had to push back and say, well, look, I really want to get this particular phrase or message out?

But I think it's funny, the question you're asking is almost like a literal moment of a very meta-question, which is: "Is this about you, Ben Haggerty? Like, where do I, the black voice, fall in this song about white privilege?" Were there moments where you really weren't on the same page?

Haggerty: The intention of the song, at the end of the day, is to start a conversation. And to utilize the platform that we have as artists, the reach that we have, to engage our audience in a conversation about race. One that can be uncomfortable, that comes with a lot of fear of not wanting to mess up, of not wanting to say the wrong thing, but just stepping into the space and learning.

Woods: I think, for me, the intention was for listeners of the song to feel something, to feel moved by the end. That's something I feel like you can't really get all the time from reading an article or watching a video. At least for myself, looking at what's happening, it's a constant state of emotional distress and trauma and almost like a saturation, to the point where, in order to act, you have to kind of stop engaging. So, just trying to use that as an entry point to motivate people to action through an emotional sphere, versus a cerebral one.

Haggerty: Right. Maybe. Maybe. I think that what is going to determine if this was all about me, or if this is bigger, is the conversations that come next, and highlighting other artists and using our resources and our fan base to shed light on not only people in the movement that are active and engaging in this anti-racist work, but also artists that might not have the same opportunities that I had. This song is a very preliminary step in what I am hoping will be lifelong work. And that's personal accountability, and accountability to the community. That, to me, is what is going to determine whether or not this song is inevitably about me or something bigger.

But, that's one that I have to keep coming back to. And we were talking last night about not wanting to make this, like, a press run. Like the minute that this becomes, "Oh, now I am the expert, and now I'm talking about Black Lives Matter," or "Now I'm the expert on white privilege." ... I am the complete opposite. I'm stepping into the conversation, I'm learning, I'm trying to read, I'm trying to engage. I'm going to make mistakes along the way, and I don't want to be like, "Let me hog up as much space as possible now that I've made this song." That would be counterproductive. I think it's speaking about the song, getting some of the intentions out, and then going back and creating a curriculum, figuring out how to get into a room with young people to have a discourse. The action is the next piece of this song.

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