Medicine Man

A whole lot can change in four years: a new commander in chief can
be sworn in, the Olympic torch can travel halfway around the globe, a
kid can go from rank freshman to big man on campus. It’s been four
years since the release of beloved local MC Ben “Macklemore” Haggerty’s
sophomore release, The Language of My World, and for him, the
time between then and now has been no less transformative.

In hiphop time, four years is an epoch, an ice age; sounds change,
political maps re­arrange, and hiphop fans—some of music’s
most fickle followers—can forget your name without a constant
deluge of mixtapes and video blogs. Yet Macklemore managed to grow in
popularity without releasing new music. Good buzz (a stint as a
featured artist on MySpace a couple years back—Tom is a
fan—raised his stock), good merchandising (his
limited-­edition T-shirts are on quite a few kids’ backs), and
increasingly daring, costume-change-­laden performances (“Shit was
getting routine,” he grins. “And I was sick of doing ‘White Privilege’
for the 300th time”) have kept his profile high in the meantime. Still,
the fans clamored for more music—so why the holdup, Mack?

The answer can be found in the song “Otherside” from VS.,
Macklemore’s new EP with producer/photographer Ryan Lewis. On that
track, Mack explicitly runs down the cycle of drug abuse, cleaning up,
and relapsing that had the 25-year-old MC creatively and emotionally
stalled out, concluding, “Syrup, Percocet, and an eighth a day will
leave you broke, depressed, and emotionally vacant.”

“Substance abuse,” Haggerty frankly admits. “That’s a big reason why
I didn’t put out music for four years. I’ve always had a problem with
moderation. Alcohol, weed—I was smoking an eighth of weed a day.
It was unhealthy and, for me, extremely unproductive.

“I got prescribed some Percoset for a back injury that I think I
faked,” he continues. “After those ran out, I flirted with the
OxyContins for a minute there. Around the same time, I started
experimenting with coke—all of this was in a relatively short
time, and it started getting out of hand.”

It was during last year’s Capitol Hill Block Party that I noticed
Haggerty was toting the same telltale Styrofoam cup that Lil Wayne has
famously sported—homie was off that lean: codeine-laced
prescription cough syrup.

“I had totally cleaned up for like four months,” Haggerty explains.
“I’d done that on my own, but I was honestly just as miserable as I’d
been doing drugs. I had no connection to anything greater than myself,
and so I relapsed. Faked a cough, got some lean. That was where I was
for a few months—not eating, nauseous, drinking ridiculous
amounts, smoking ridiculous amounts, pills, every now and then a little
coke, and sipping syrup. It wasn’t a lifestyle I could maintain, and
it’s something that people don’t really talk about.”

Eventually, after being confronted about his drug use by his father,
Haggerty entered rehab. He’s now 14 months sober, and he’s regained a
focus, clarity, and marked spiritual connection that comes through in
his music.

Ah, the music. A couple months back, just in time for his
Bumbershoot performance, Mack dropped The Unplanned Mixtape,
much to his fans’ delight. Mostly a collection of his guest appearances
over the last few years, it also contains the misty watercolor 206-hop
reminiscence “The Town” (and its video by Stranger Genius Award winner
Zia Mohajerjasbi is near completion). VS.—on which Lewis
crisply flips riffs from Beirut and Arcade Fire—shows Macklemore
getting his feet under him again and getting to know himself better
than ever. Songs like the frenetic memoir “Life Is Cinema,” the proud
closer “Irish Celebration” (“I put down the drink/­I couldn’t drink
like a gentleman”), and the epic “Kings,” featuring Champagne Champagne
and Mad Rad’s Buffalo Madonna (“I’m super inspired by those
guys these days,” Haggerty says), are clearly the work of a better,
stronger, more experienced MC—and person.

The candidness of “Otherside,” though, is Macklemore at his most
daring (even the “Californication”-sampling beat, a should-be-cheesy
gamble, pays off), and it reflects something essential to the MC’s
popularity. “I just wanted to make it something that’s okay for people
to talk about,” he says. “If they’re still using, happy using,
whatever—one of the things I get out of AA meetings that helps me
stay sober is hearing other people’s stories, because as they go
through their experiences, you see yourself in them. It’s
connection.”