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More crucially, the rap awards are given out before the broadcast begins. This is odd. Many, many people enjoy rap. (The opening of the official ceremony was a performance by Beyoncé, who was accompanied by a rapper named Jay Z, who is now of note mostly because he is Beyoncé’s husband, and he got to stand near her while she performed “Drunk in Love”; she set the bar unpleasantly high for the rest of the night by melting people with her voice and presence.) But all three rap Grammys went to the Opie Taylor and Andy Griffith of rap, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. Macklemore’s “American Graffiti” hairdo and crushing earnestness make him very easy to mock, but it is almost impossible to indulge that feeling because the song that made them famous, “Same Love,” a duet with Mary Lambert, is a clever, well-crafted song about homophobia—particularly, that within the hip-hop community.
“Same Love” is a tough one—it’s basically impossible to be against this song, as cheesy as Macklemore and the song and the untempered sincerity of the project are. Hip-hop’s problem with homophobia is more than minor, genetically linked to thousands of bias crimes, reported and not, and when you’ve got teen-agers growing up listening to hip-hop (I do), it’s not so bad to have a straight guy stand up and say homophobia is uncool, and to be celebrated for it. So I am happy Macklemore is there, and for this song. But he didn’t need to win all three rap awards, or, at the official ceremony, be awarded Best New Artist over the m.c. Kendrick Lamar or the country singer Kacey Musgraves, both of whom will be relevant long after Macklemore has left music for talk radio.
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shaun james bockert 