5 Current Rappers To Watch (And 5 To Forget)

5. It's Time To Forget: Macklemore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhf5cuXiLTA Rap music is often served with fat spoonfuls of bravado and peacock-like swagger. It may seem odd to hear grown men rambling on about how awesome they are, but you have to look at it in the context of the roots of hip hop as we know it: the battle. When kids from the projects started slinging verses instead of bullets, the aim was to put your opponent down and build yourself up. The battle approach is toothless these days without an opponent to face off against on stage - now these chaps are just huffing and puffing into thin air. Still, we forgive them because it's become an integral part of hip hop music. What we shouldn't forgive, however, is barely concealed narcissism laced with self-pity - Macklemore's weapons of choice when he's banging on about how amazing he is in spite of all he's been through. Once the darling of the scene, this self-righteous muppet couldn't shut up about how he had made it all on his own, beating the odds and building a name for himself without a major label's help. By this point most of us had dozed off. But he went on, patting himself on the back about his work ethic, about his credentials as a pretentious art critic ("I love Basquiat" he drops on Ten Thousand Hours, shamelessly name-dropping the artist voted "Most Likely To Be Name-Dropped By Self-Obsessed Ginger Rappers"), and purring loudly as he reminds us how hard he battled drug addiction and crying into his polystyrene cup when he relapsed. Group hug? Not to worry, this lad has a group hug all on his own. Ok, so what have we got here? A smarmy prat, a couple of passable rhymes, one properly good song (that would be Same Love), everything else about him can be wrapped up with a pretty ribbon and tossed into the bin.