Macklemore stop apologizing for being a white successful rapper!

Macklemore is going through the motions of White shame. Instead of celebrating his Grammy wins, the 30-year-old has been busy apologizing for being a rapper, who also happens to be White.

We get it.

The Seattle native aired out some of that color humiliation in a Hot 97 interview publicized yesterday, saying of his Grammy victory, "It's the blessing and the curse, a little bit more of the curse."

There were also empathetic words for poor, poor Kendrick Lamar. "First and foremost, Kendrick [Lamar] is a friend of mine. He's somebody that I love his music and, in my opinion, had the best rap album of the year, and knowing how the Grammys usually go, I knew that there would be a great chance that we'd win that award and, in essence, rob Kendrick. That's what happened tonight. It kind of sucks. I think we made a great album. I think that Kendrick made a better rap album.”

The Seattle-rapper has never not been vocal about the fact that Hip-Hop has yet to fully embrace him, and he doesn't tend to fight the opinions. He also acknowledges race as playing a part in his own success story. What results is a seemingly endless merry-go-round of humble boasting and self-loathing. Just as he'll school you on his rap credentials in one interview, another finds him confessing, "If you're going to be a White dude and do this sh-t, I think you have to take some level of accountability."

In the new The Source magazine, the "Thrift Shop" rapper came right out and said  that Lamar deserved the Best Rap Album Grammy over him, and when that didn't actually happen, the apology tour commenced. The first stop? Lamar's inbox.

Mack sent Lamar  the following text to Lamar after last night's show:

 "You got robbed. I wanted you to win. You should have. It's weird and sucks that I robbed you. I was gonna say that during the speech. The music started playing during my speech and I froze. Anyway, you know what it is. Congrats on this year and your music. Appreciate you as an artist and as a friend. Much love."

No matter how sincere publicizing the message wasn't just good sportsmanship, but another way of fanning the race flames.

We don't like to talk about it,  but there is a "color majority" in  Hip-Hop, as there are in other music genres. There are unwritten rules that people outside the color lines chose to abide by, which for Macklemore means asking for racial forgiveness as much as possible. But when is enough, enough?

Becoming a successful White rapper can be a tricky maneuver, and unfortunately, the race issue is bound to come up. This is not to say that  skin color dictates skill level, but being in the rap minority could very well be an uncomfortable place for anyone. As such, White rapper prerequisites usually tend to include publicly speaking about the Black woman (or women) you had sex with, the Black people you grew up around, and speaking out against the "n-word," but also collaborating with artists who freely use the epithet. It's quite a  balancing act and because Macklemore is relatively just getting his feet wet in the White rapper pool, his  internal struggle is very, very real. New York Times writer, Jon Caramanica, speaks to his"white guilt" in a piece noting that the Grammy winner's reaction to beating K. Dot works to "reinforce the narrative of Macklemore as tortured intruder, keen to relish his success but stressed about all the shoulders he's had to step on along the way." Other points that can be raised are that he's just being honest, and maybe looking for a little sympathy in the process. Of course, the irony  here is that Hip-Hop was birthed out of non-acceptance, and has  now become a club so exclusive that it can discriminate against others. 

Meanwhile, Macklemore's apologies for being a successful White rapper in Hip-Hop, and constantly admitting to benefitting from "White privilege" doesn't change the actual acts itself. If Elvis Presley would have owned up to his part in hi-jacking Black music, that would not have made the reality any different. Or any better for that matter.

In Macklemore's case,  what it does is raise questions as to how he can even be so passionate about rap music, if all he had to do for a hit single was be a "non-threatening" White guy, as he put it in Rolling Stone.

Perhaps it's the constant self-shaming that stops some from truly connecting to his music? Or maybe they honestly don't like it  (which is a topic nobody seems to want to address).

Regardless, apologizing for being White isn't going to make Hip-Hop as a whole accept him faster, and if it does, he doesn't needs those kinds of fans.

There's no shame in winning awards, selling singles, wanting to be accepted by Hip-Hop, and being White.

Editoral by:HIPHOPDX