Macklemore and Wanz looking and sounding incredible on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Master P and MC Hammer must be scratching their heads about now. They must be asking themselves: “Where were these guys before I unloaded all my loot on the sort of stuff that the Bible warns will rust, break, and or get eaten by moths?”
If you haven’t heard, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have a hot song that is quickly catching fire about the foolishness of paying $50 for a tee shirt. For a stupid designer tee shirt!
Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, raps about proudly donning a coat bought at a thrift shop just down the road. How refreshing! He even owns up to buying and wearing your grandpop’s old suit; steppin’ out to the club with—count ‘em—just twenty dollars in his pocket; and feeling pretty freakin’ awesome all the while (like most of us) lookin’ for a come-up.
Warning: the lyrics are raw, but hilarious. Wanz’s voice on the hook is flawless. The recent performance on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”? Priceless.
I was thrilled to hear it, to hear that someone was finally rapping about something real—as solid as gold—to the hood instead of the fantasy of chromed-out teeth and Lambos. Not too long ago, Beyonce and Jay-Z made a joint decision to split a million to give to charity. Then Beyonce singularly dropped 5 million bucks! on a Hublot Big Bang, a watch likely diamond-encrusted with the blood, sweat, and tears of some poor African. It seems that rapping to the hood on the difference between a good and a shameful life is long over due. My condolences on your loss, Beyonce—and what perfect timing! Macklemore calls such ridiculous extravagance getting “swindled and pimped.”
You could offer up BIG BUCKS for the BIG BANG. Or, you could “store up for yourself treasures in heaven, where moths and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:20).
Nothing would have pleased me more though than if the rapper promoting this brand of common sense (which is not so common) were Black.
Suspiciously, I have yet to hear “Thrift Shop” on the urban stations. Hopefully, this will not be another sad case of hating on the rapper that comes in white. Back in the day, if you were Black, rockin’ to “Ice Ice Baby” by Rob Van Winkle a.k.a. Vanilla Ice was forbidden. Black people gawked at you as if you (a Negro) had bought a slave instead of a song—you know, because Blacks had no business listening to that “wack Caucasian-rap” better known as Crap.
Hey, Black people! Rap verses are not, I repeat, are not Bible verses. And because rap is more likely to get a brother kilt than ransom his life, I’d just like to take a moment to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ for The Word. The only words you can count on to make sense.
But to those who would still hate, I would say, “Macklemore is just another flavor of M&Ms.” His debut studio album The Heist, released on October 9, 2012, entered at the top of the US iTunes download charts and rose to No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 charts. The Heist also sold 78,000 copies in the first week.
So get over it and get with the program. The Thrift Shop Program, for those into stuntin’ and flossin’ but savin’ that money!
Afterward, as you reconsider your own overspending this holiday season, to any millionaire friends, Black in particular, who have forgotten from whence they come and from how far, please forward the following immediately:
A New King James Bible, Guaranteed Success by Master P (to put an end to all million dollar suckers) and, of course, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ hot new single, “Thrift Shop.”
They make great stocking stuffers. And could possibly salvage a life.
