The overtly silly “Brad Pitt’s Cousin” has Macklemore making absurd quips about his cat’s Instagram, his dick (he calls it “Ron Burgundy”) and even makes a Deez Nuts reference. However, the album doesn’t seem to get better from there. Simply put, it’s a poor man’s “Thrift Shop.” It does have its moments, but most of them don’t even involve Macklemore they come from the song’s breathtaking features, which include old-school hip-hop legends Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee and Grandmaster Caz as well as Foxy Shazam vocalist Eric Nally, whose shrieking falsetto heightens “Downtown” ’s unsteady ambition. After he dramatically closes the first act, Macklemore enters into the bright and flashy “Downtown,” an instrumentally overblown and lyrically slipshod track that starts out as an ode to mopeds and then transforms abruptly into a Hamilton -esque anthem. Macklemore’s internal conflict continues to be a recurring theme on the album.
Macklemore has the right to be upset with how the media and society treats him so harshly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he should be so apologetic that he can’t just take credit for an award that he believed he didn’t deserve. However, what’s really charging Macklemore’s lackluster rhymes on “Light Tunnels” is Ryan Lewis’s production, which remains as engrossing and immaculate as ever. And while the 32-year-old Seattle rapper makes a powerful statement about the toxicity of fame and the artifice of awards shows, he stretches the almost 7-minute song a bit too long and a bit too thin. On the theatrical opener “Light Tunnels,” Macklemore contextualizes these conflicted feelings about his rap album win with a step-by-step description of his journey to the Grammys. Instead of delivering another set of club-ready singles like in The Heist, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made finds Macklemore attempting to tackle even larger socially conscious themes on an album with an ironically apt title. Ultimately, Macklemore’s contradicting anxiety and pride in his music culminated into his sophomore record with Ryan Lewis, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made. However, the biggest surprise from the controversy came from Macklemore himself, who thought he didn’t deserve Best Rap Album either. “Same Love” was deemed by some as disingenuous, while many believed Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.a.a.d. Along with his trusted collaborator Ryan Lewis, Macklemore has provided teenagers everywhere with pop-friendly jams like the sing-a-long hit “Thrift Shop,” the fast-paced banger “Can’t Hold Us” and the proactive LGBTQ anthem “Same Love.” But after his and Lewis’s win for Best Rap Album at the 2013 Grammys for their studio debut The Heist, backlash seemed imminent. Since his breakthrough in 2012, Macklemore has become a divisive artist in the hip-hop community.
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