Macklemore took to the Grammy stage in January with Madonna to perform their pro-gay equality anthem Same Love featuring singer Mary Lambert. Macklemore and Lewis wrote the song during the campaign for Washington State’s Referendum 74 allowing for same-sex couples to legally marry and as a response to learning about the suicide of a bullied teenager. Their intentions are well meaning: the song’s message is intended to read that gay and straight love is one in the same, but the reality is much more nuanced. The song doesn’t actually help to enact any social change by ignoring many of the socio-historical events that surround the topic and rap genre. This blog seeks to examine the place where Same Love rests in society by considering the intersection of race and sexuality, particularly in the media and in the image of Macklemore.
It’s impossible to discuss either the racial or sexual issues surrounding the song without first noting that, as Roderick A. Ferguson asserts in his essay The Relevance of Race for the Study of Sexuality “race and sexuality are mutually constitutive” (pg 109), that is, that race and sexuality are intersectional. In a song that discusses gay rights in a largely black-dominated genre, we can’t certainly can’t discuss one without the other.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are straight, male, and white. Same Love almost certainly wouldn’t have gotten so much attention had they not been, for the fact that these are men who live outside of the world of the minorities that might have been expected to produce a pro-gay rap. When Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, preformed Same Love on The Ellen DeGeneres Show she announced the duo saying, “Here’s why you need to care about our next guest: no other artist in hip-hop history has ever taken the stand defending marriage equality the way they have.” Her proclamation isn’t actually true. In fact, there’s an entire sub-genre of hip-hop composed of queer artists known as “Homo Hop,” which Haggerty completely ignores with his lyric, “If I were gay, I would think hip-hop hates me.”
It’s possible that both he and DeGeneres were either unaware of the genre at the time or that they perhaps meant mainstream hip hop, it’s not as if other rap artists haven’t spoken publicly in favor for gay rights. Jay-Z spoke of his feelings about the fight against gay marriage in a 2012 interview on CNN that he’s, “…always thought it as something that was still…holding the country back.” He continued,
…what people do in their own homes is their business, and you can choose to love whoever you love. That’s their business. It’s no different than discriminating against blacks. It’s discrimination, plain and simple.
Other black rap artists, including Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, and Queen Latifah additionally have voiced their support for gay rights, but none have received nearly the attention Haggerty has. In 2002. Haggerty acknowledges his white privilege in his earlier song, White Privilege:
And white rappers albums really get the most spins /The face of hip hop has changed a lot since Eminem/And if he’s taking away black artists’ profits I look just like him/Claimed a culture that wasn’t mine, the way of the American/Hip Hop is gentrified and where will all the people live
Despite this acknowledgement, he does little to take steps to rectify the situation and instead continues to benefit from it.
Jamieson Cox, a gay music contributor for Buzzfeed writes,“A lot of people would rather see queer rappers given equal media treatment instead of all the focus on yet another straight white dude.” Black and openly gay rapper Le1f (who himself often raps about being gay) that Haggerty ripped off his song Wut in their massively successful song Thrift Shop. Played side by side, it’s undeniable that the structure and beats from the two songs are strikingly similar. In a series of now-deleted tweets from his personal Twitter account, Le1f angrily wrote of, “that time that straight white dude ripped off my song then made a video about gay interracial love and made a million dollars.” Despite the two songs being eerily similar, Le1f has found little commercial success with Wut, only performing on Late Show with David Letterman long after Thrift Shop reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold 7 million copies in the United States.
Though Haggerty campaigns that being gay is ok, he makes a concerted effort to prove to his audience that he isn’t gay. In the first verse of Same Love, he recounts the fears over his sexuality he had growing up and the need for reassurance that he was straight, rapping:
One could argue that he’s simply giving context as to his ally status, but he does so in a way as if to beg the audience to, “please believe me when I say I’m not gay”. He often states his sexuality during interviews, an example of which comes from his appearance on Chelsea Lately mentioning, “If you type in ‘Macklemore’… and you type in ‘is’, ‘Macklemore gay’ pops up. So, yes, the Internet thinks that I’m gay… it’s not true.” Constantly asserting himself as straight essentially states that not only is there something inherently wrong with being gay, but that it’s something so undesirable that one should feel the need to separate from.
This is especially compounded when he uses the homophobic slur “faggot” in the second verse, a word that many find troublesome or hurtful when used by a straight person regardless of intent. Haggerty admits that he used to use the word “gay” derogatorily as recently as “a couple years ago.” Though Macklemore intends well with the song, it’s difficult to separate the negative feelings associated. Cox writes, “It would take an incredibly cynical person to think that Macklemore is attempting to ride a wave of increasing acceptance of homosexuality to commercial success.”
To Haggerty’s credit, he’s stayed unwavering in his defense of marriage equality despite the noise coming from critics. Even this, though, brings up the argument among some in the community of whether we should be fighting for gay marriage in the first place. Some, such as gender theorist Kate Bornstien contends in her Open Letter to LGBT Leaders Who Are Pushing Marriage Equality, that, “marriage as it’s practiced in the USA is unconstitutional,” and that the type of marriage equality being fought for will only stand to bring forth more inequality as the rights given after a wedding excludes those who, for whatever reason, are unable or unwilling to marry. “Marriage is a privileging institute,” she writes, and is:
along the oppressive vectors of race, class, age, looks, ability, citizenship, family status, and language. Seeking to grab oneself a piece of the marriage-rights pie does little if anything at all for the oppression caused by the institution of marriage itself to many more people than sex and gender outlaws. (pg 12)
Though his intentions are likely good, Macklemore’s song is ultimately misguided as he fails to acknowledge the privileges afforded to him. The problem isn’t that he’s saying the things he’s saying, it’s that people within the community have been saying or doing the same things for years without the exposure or credit Haggerty’s been awarded.
Works Cited:
Emery, Debbie. “Grammys: Macklemore and Madonna Perform ‘Same Love’ As 33 Couples Wed Live on Air.” The Hollywood Reporter. Last modified January 26th, 2014. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/macklemore-madonna-perform-same-love-674168
Ferguson, Roderick A . 2007. “The Relevance of Race for the Study of Sexuality.”A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies. Ed. George E. Haggerty and Molly McGarry. Blackwell Publishing: Oxford, UK.
Madison Carlson. “Stop Telling Queer People to be Grateful for Macklemore.” feminspire. Last modified September 3rd, 2013. http://feminspire.com/stop-telling-queer-people-to-be-grateful-for-macklemore/
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Sauvalle, Julien. “Rapper Le1f Vs. Macklemore: ‘That Straight White Dude Ripped Off My Song’.” Out. last modified October 27th, 2013. http://www.out.com/entertainment/popnography/2013/08/27/rapper-le1f-vs-macklemore-straight-white-dude-stole-song
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RIAA. “American single certifications — Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Wanz — Thrift Shop”. Last modified November 13th, 2013. http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?artist=%22Thrift+Shop%22 If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Single, then click SEARCH
Mary Lambert, Ben Haggerty, Ryan Lewis. “Same Love” (song lyrics). Accessed March 4th, 2014. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/macklemore/samelove.html
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Corner, Lewis. “Macklemore talks about his gay anthem ‘Same Love’: ‘It’s personal’.” Digital Spy. Last modified May 15, 2013. http://www.digitalspy.com/music/news/a481751/macklemore-talks-about-his-gay-anthem-same-love-its-personal.html#~oBs1Witjhz9RJv#ixzz2yuBBSvD6
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David Eng, ed., “What’s Queer About Queer Studies Now?” Social Text, 2005.
