Not messy at all

By James Glenn M. Gomez

Album Review
This Unruly Mess I’ve Made
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

NOT ALL rapper-producer duos stand the test of time: Will Smith got more famous as an actor; Chiddy Bang split, and so on. When Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s album The Heist became a worldwide hit, I expected the worse. Would Macklemore pursue his solo career again? Fortunately that hasn’t been the case yet for the Seattle-based duo.

The thrift-shopping poet’s witty lyricism on topics ranging from somewhat serious to seriously funny, with Lewis’s innovative (and also sometimes horn-filled) production, made the songs in their second album This Unruly Mess I’ve Made… normal Macklemore & Ryan Lewis tracks. What makes some of the tracks notable, though, is Macklemore’s ability to weave a story worth listening to, presenting a fresh angle while he’s at it.

One example would be Unruly Mess’s finale, the thought-provoking “White Privilege II,” featuring soul singer Jamila Woods. It is a five-act opus, interjected with dialogue, featuring each side of racism in America, through the eyes of white people — the uncertainty, the hypocrisy, the ignorance, Macklemore’s own side — and, capping the song off, with racism as seen through the eyes of black people.

The song also shows the irony of how black culture — its music and style — has been appropriated by white culture. “We take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives?” asks Macklemore in the song’s fourth act. But it also asks what white people — what everyone — should do to end racial injustice. The song does not need to be deep; it just needs to get its point across. And that’s what it does.

Sometimes Macklemore and Ryan Lewis thrive on simplicity. “Let’s Eat” is the anthem of people trying to diet (and failing miserably because eating is better than dieting). “Well, fuck it man, I like fried shit!” exclaims Macklemore, with a cutesy piano piece by Ryan Lewis in the background. Macklemore manages to throw shade on the hypocrisy of New Year’s resolutions, too — “Happy New Year’s! Everybody got a resolution. But the next day we forget about it and never do it.” This shameless, self-deprecating, guilt-tripping song is sort of an interlude, along with “Dance Off,” to the seriousness — or dreariness — of the next three songs (“Bolo Tie,” “The Train,” and “White Privilege II”).

It’s also commendable that the two decided to expand their reach, collaborating with more notable names: singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran in the fatherhood-themed “Growing Up”; Gospel singer Leon Bridges in “Kevin,” a song about painkiller addiction and overprescription; and, surprisingly, actor Idris Elba in “Dance Off.” The variety of collaborations added depth (or fun) to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s tracks. Who would’ve thought of the Luther star challenging anyone to a dance off?

Despite Lewis’s incredible production and Macklemore’s wordplay, I found that some tracks just can’t stand on their own compared to the ones in The Heist, where almost every song is unique in its own way, and to be specific: This Unruly Mess’ “The Train” and “St. Ides.” They’re not bad, they just fall flat; they sound bland, lackluster compared to the other tracks, somewhat out of place in the album. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s songs have that feel of longing to be heard — from the grandness of “Downtown” to the engaging narrative of “Light Tunnels” — and that’s what I didn’t hear from “The Train” and “St. Ides.”

That said, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made is nowhere near unruly nor a mess. It is a 21^st century slice-of-life art form that still aims to be different in the sea of fame and fortune that is hip-hop, just like their debut album. However, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis remain game changers in the genre like Kendrick Lamar, and that’s good. I like to think that the unruly mess they thought of is actually a pot of gold.