It's easy to get lost in hip-hop's unending torrent of uploaded-one-moment, forgotten-the-next mixtapes and MP3s issued by rappers chasing the dragon of blog buzz, a legacy measured in download counts and dead links. Here-today-gone-tomorrow artists are everywhere. It's the perfectionists who keep a fickle audience waiting months or sometimes years who run the most risk, one that carries the possibility of the ultimate punishment: irrelevance. One Seattle rapper, however, is trying to have it both ways. And by all accounts, he's succeeding.
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Ben Haggerty (aka Macklemore) is the man behind songs like the cautionary tale "Otherside," chronicling an all-too-real addiction to cough syrup, as well as "The Town," his anthemic tribute to his home town. Like most of the 28-year-old Seattle native's work, both tracks have a distinct energy — and a lasting one. "Most of these blog-buzz rappers, their shelf life is a year or two, tops," says the freckle-faced MC. "I would much rather take the time to make pieces of art that, even if they don't become popular, I can listen to in ten years and be proud of what I made."
Haggerty may be serious when he says he'd sacrifice accolades for artistic freedom, but it's not a choice he's had to make yet. Although it's been seven years since Macklemore's most recent full-length record (2005's The Language of My World), his fans haven't just stuck by him, they've multiplied. He can attribute the rise in part to a handful of smart, meticulously crafted releases — last year's Redux, a remix of 2009's The VS. EP, and "My Oh My," a timely, viral tribute to recently deceased Mariners announcer Dave Niehaus — and tremendous grassroots support: Haggerty raised more than $18,000 from fans to film a music video for his sneaker hymn "Wings."
Haggerty clearly feeds off that hometown love. But a year ago, before he was featured on the cover of XXL as a member of the magazine's 2012 freshman class, after playing a few sparsely attended shows at industry blowout South by Southwest in Austin, he wondered if staying put meant never getting ahead. "I was feeling trapped without a formula to get out of here," he says. "I thought about [moving to] L.A. and New York."
He ultimately ended up staying in Seattle, though, because he realized he couldn't replicate the community he's built there. "Will I stay here for the rest of my life? I hope not," says Haggerty, who says he plans to continue work on his next LP after the tour ends. "But this is always going to be home, regardless of where I end up. And it's important right now, more than ever, to rep where I'm from, so the rest of the country gets familiar with what's going on up here."
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