Seattle Saves Hiphop, Again
The Connection Between Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis's "Thrift Shop"
mike force
Tools
Many years ago, KEXP DJ Riz Rollins pointed out to me the significance of Sir Mix-A-Lot's biggest hit, "Baby Got Back." At the time of its release in 1992, hiphop had two great camps: East Coast and West Coast. The East Coast was dominated by a pro-black, Afrocentric program with a militant side (Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, and so on) and a bohemian side (A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, and so on). The West Coast was all about the gangster realism of Cypress Hill, Ice Cube, and Dr. Dre, whose track "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" became the anthem of that dangerous way of life. The music from both camps tended to be righteous, serious, and all about reality. Dr. Dre, for example, would spend hours in the studio trying to capture the exact sound that an automatic weapon makes when fired from a moving car; A Tribe Called Quest rapped about the importance of eating healthy foods and appreciating black cultural heritage. Then, out of nowhere, some rapper from Seattle released a track about loving big butts.
According to Rollins, Sir Mix-A-Lot's success caught everyone by surprise because (1) Seattle was completely off the hiphop radar, and (2) there was nothing in the mainstream that sounded remotely like his music. Sir Mix-A-Lot did not rap like Ice Cube or Chuck D, nor was he swept up by the Das EFX fast-rap "-iggedy" craze of that moment. Sir Mix-A-Lot rapped only like Sir Mix-A-Lot. As for the beat, with its weird mix of electro stabs and hectic robot bass, it was made by a producer who seemed to be completely ignorant of the mainstream trends—the G-funk of the West Coast and the deep jazz moods of the East Coast. Sir Mix-A-Lot's hiphop was like a weird plant (purple leaves, red stem) growing under the blended and bending light of two distant suns. But most importantly, Sir Mix-A-Lot wasn't so fucking serious. "Baby Got Back," which opens with a conversation between two white girls disgusted by a black woman's huge butt, returned laughter to the hiphop charts and the dance floor. The record felt like a window being opened in a stuffy room. Finally, someone wasn't rapping about being shot, or shooting a nigga, or returning to Africa, or being proud about the color of their skin. "This," Rollins explained to me, "was Seattle's big gift to black America. People remembered it was good to have fun now and then. And it could only happen in Seattle because we were so isolated. We were free to do whatever we wanted." "Baby Got Back" spent five weeks at the top of the Billboard chart.
Stranger Personals
Last week, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis's "Thrift Shop" became the top-selling single in the United States, the first rap record from Seattle to reach that position since "Baby Got Back." Though two decades separate these records, it is curious that they have so much in common. To begin with, "Thrift Shop" sounds like nothing else out there. Its beat is on its own, all alone in that homogenous realm of contemporary pop music. The warped horn, bouncy boom, buildup of the bridge—all of this sounds as if it were made in a world that had no idea hiphop centers like Atlanta, NYC, or LA existed. As Sir Mix-A-Lot raps only like Sir Mix-A-Lot, Macklemore raps only like Macklemore. Indeed, many of the commenters on his YouTube videos compare him to Tupac, not because they sound similar, but because they share a style that feels honest and direct. Finally, "Thrift Shop" also returned laughter to the dance floor and the pop charts. In a rap world that's still obsessed with gold, executive automobiles, and getting those Benjamins, Macklemore raps: "Draped in a leopard mink, girls standin' next to me/Probably shoulda' washed this, smells like R. Kelly's sheets (piiisssssss)." In fact, during the week that Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are ruling the top 10 singles, the only other track that has a sense of fun and play is by a man rapping in Korean.
Because Seattle is so disconnected from the mainstream in this small corner of the huge United States, we could never produce the kind of predictable rappers who are obsessed with gold everything (Atlanta's Trinidad James) or have a serious boner for fucking problems (NYC's A$AP Rocky). Our rappers are instead asking girls to buy them drinks (Don't Talk to the Cops!), or having Christmas on the moon (THEESatisfaction), or celebrating the greatness of a Filipino deli on Beacon Hill (Blue Scholars), or feeling like $1,000 in 1988 (Fresh Espresso), or dealing with an old beat-up Volvo (Grynch). "Thrift Shop" will sound like something that came straight out of the blue if you don't come from "The Town." 
This article has been updated since its original publication.
I'm too old for rapping anymore (I won't go as far as to say rap's not around to be saved), but Macklemore strikes me as just barely closeted Christian rapper. Ugly Duckling North. Hey we're just going to talk about our own lives goofy we're good guys we know all the songs we know our history we know we can't get away with pretending to be anything we're not and we have a deejay who cuts the choruses live (still haven't heard the dude--am I right?) but man we love this music for life bro you can't front on that...
Old people were talking about saving rap in 93. Falling into that trap--like I guess I just did--is pretty much announcing you're old. Rapping isn't for old people.
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Congrats to him for his success however I just think "Thrift Store" really sucks. The song is not as fun as "Baby's Got Back" and Mix is a much better MC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUxWKMfa6…
@1 is dead on, I'd also add Brother Ali.
And the thought that "Thrift Shop" SAVED HIPHOP? GTFOH. There could be plenty of arguments made for the exact opposite.
It's simply indie pop rap. It targets teenagers, college kids, and soft white people who are scared of black people but want to be cool to their kids. Macklemore can rap, he just chooses not to anymore. He'd rather tell stories.
But fuck, at least someone is rapping about gay rights n shit.
Nothing original or amazing there - other than he would be able to write a half decent essay. Props to him and Ryan tho. Any why did it take so long for the public to clue in to him, he's been at it for years!?
Here's hoping SEA brings something fresher, soon.
14
That's the problem, it's POP. The rest of Seattle hiphop isn't all out-there shit like Shabazz Palaces. Dyme Def and Fresh Espresso ought to be getting play but they won't because of the permanently whack-ass direction popular rap has taken. Macklemore is popular because of a dopey pop-rap song and his actual rap is fucking lame.
@11 I don't know where you're getting that assumption, because white people also participate in conspicuous consumption.
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S'okay, all you guys can be over there in the corner, talking amongst yerselves about the 'good ol days', while the other tens of millions of us will be having a good time with Mackles and his GREAT songs... silly us, lol...
Fun hip hop could happen in places other than Seattle and did before "Baby Got Back," as good as that song was. Seattle needs to stop sticking its' head so far up its' ass that it thinks it is some kind of outsider hip hop mecca that couldn't/doesn't exist elsewhere.
That said, Shabazz and all those affiliated cats are putting out some unique, nextish level shit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhe-eYHQg…
Plenty of hip hop from the beginning through today doesn't wallow in the negative. That doesn't make it good, though it is what I prefer. Don't mistake your lack of hip hop history as the summation of hip hop. Just b/c Macklemore is the first rapper many of the hip hop uneducated PNW have heard that isn't about pimping, drugs, misogyny, violence doesn't mean it is unique, nor good. And you can talk about that stuff in a thoughtful, critical, yet funky way, i.e. "The Jungle," Public Enemy, the Roots, etc.
Not trying to hate on the guy. He does what he does cause he loves it and can support himself doing it while spreading good messages. Great for him. But anyone claiming Macklemore to be great is an ignorant motherlicker who needs a hip hop education. Egotrip is a good, broad starting point. http://www.egotripland.com/
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Look, rap in 1992 was roughly divided exactly as Charles divided them: The hippie-earnest-jazzy bucket that held ATCQ, Arrested Development, and much of the Tommy Boy stable; the gangbanging cinema verite of the LA crews; and their compadres on the East Coast who embraced their own form of militancy.
Meanwhile, the rap that was crossing over was, well, none of that. The first #1 rap single in the US? "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc. Vanilla Ice dominated 1990-91 radio. The media was more focused on 2 Live Crew than they were on NWA and Death Row Records. The hippie-earnest-jazzy guys would peek through with Digital Underground, Arrested Development, and (to a lesser extent) Naughty By Nature, but even then, hair metal still had more cache.
"Baby Got Back" did a number of things -- it finally crystallized a formula for making rap into pop; it finally got blacks and whites together around the idea that hip-hop and rap could transcend race (and seriously, as a college student in the summer of '92 there was nothing funnier than watching a bunch of white upper middle class kids going on about LA faces and Oakland booty); and it also was the final non-gangsta non-coastal hit rap song in this tripartite division of rap. The Chronic would come out that December, 39 Chambers the next year, and Arrested Development would be a TV show and an embarrassing #1 choice for the Pazz And Jop Poll.
But here's the other thing: Mix got absolutely pilloried by the rap community for the EXACT reasons the commenters above are ripping on Macklemore. He's too pop. He's not a good rapper. Anyone could sing about this. He's giving the Seattle scene a bad name. The only reason we look at him with pride now is because it's been 20 years.
I have no idea if Macklemore is going to be just a flash in the pan. I have no idea if he's going to finally get the hip-hop zeitgeist to look Northwest and see what a plethora of talent we have in the local scene. I hope for the best. But consider that 50 years ago, a flash in the pan band from the Northwest made a muddy recording of a Jamaican ballad that generated a huge amount of controversy... and also evangelized garage rock, the progenitor of American punk and the distant relative of the grunge that every other band in Seattle was pushing alongside Mix. And no one today would dare diss "Louie Louie," played into the ground as much as it has been.
I really hope this is the turning point in hip-hop. Charles is right -- it really has taken itself way too seriously. So maybe this is truly a bookend to "Baby Got Back" and we're going to see hip-hop try hard to be fun again, even though it's turned into an angry scold who wants it all to be real.
But it says something that Macklemore is absolutely killing in Australia right now. He sounds like the Hilltop Hoods' long-lost American cousin. Australian hip-hop sounds more like what that hippy-earnest-jazzy camp would sound like had they not fallen into obscurity with the coming of gangsta.
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