I’m back from a couple weeks on the East Coast; Brooklyn gave me some much-needed cultural nourishment I just can’t get from my lovely perch here in South Lake Union (where the grass is apparently watered with Am-hole tears on the daily). Not just black people everywhere—black neighborhoods, businesses, and festivals (let me tell you, AfroPunk 2015 was a living, thriving lookbook of beautiful melanated excellence). A city that pulsed and thumped well past last call, where you can find shit popping, even away from the gentrifiers and douchebags. Who’da thunk? I made it home just in time for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s new video for “Downtown.”
Since local convention holds that any conversation on this subject take the form of either a highly competitive contest of parkour onto Mack’s metaphorical shaft or an old-timey overalls, pitchforks, and torches Lench Mob—leave it to me to once again be this beleaguered scene’s sole voice of reason and nuance.
First: It’s cool to see folks I know doing it, living out their grandest ambitions and visions—I love seeing the Massive Monkees and their choreography shine. It is utterly fantastic that Macklemore gave a high-profile stimulus package to Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, and Melle Mel—and to the city of Spokane, who definitely needed it after that white lady said she was a black lady.
That said: I cannot deal with “Downtown.”
It does not bang in any sense—Ryan Lewis’s productions don’t really do that—and is a too-many-tabs-open mess of musical ideas. The singer with the Prince Valiant bob strikes me as one who probably grew up stuffed into his high-school locker, not unlike a baby veal. Yet “Downtown”—as high-key corny as it is—will surely be a hit by the time you read this, way bigger than, say, the Spin Doctors’ “Cleopatra’s Cat.”
As “Downtown”s go, it’s not half the pop tune that Petula Clark’s ‘60s classic, nor SWV’s oral sex jam of the same name are. It lacks the funky swing—and gun onomatopoeia—of M.O.P.’s “Downtown Swinga” (’94, ’96, or ’98). Really, it reminds me most of Little Shop of Horrors‘ “Skid Row (Downtown),” just without the emotional depth—perhaps Mack and Ryan secretly have a future on Broadway (and not just the one the Posse is on). “Downtown” is signature Heist Mackling, another patently bizarre kid-friendly pop-rap stunt-fantasy a la “Thrift Shop” framed around mopeds—another signifier for his ostensible rejection of rap materialism (this time, instead of $50 T-shirts, it’s Bugattis).
“Thrift Shop” was a risk—a total oddity, an unlikely mega-success—but it set the table; “Downtown,” which would be a huge, baffling commercial misstep for anyone besides Mack, Eminem, or Glee, is ultimately a safe move. I’m waiting for the riskier, topical material that I suspect is coming.
The dude I know, the guy who marched onto I-5 last year, the cat listening in the back of the room, has more shit on his mind than just Some Wild Ass Silly Shit—but I get it. He’s gotta keep it SWASS.
Spread love, it’s the Seattle way—or should be.