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Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are pitted against Kendrick Lamar in five Grammy categories including Best Rap Album, but if it was up to Macklemore Lamar’s CD Good Kid, M.A.A.D City would win the rap award. The Seattle rapper was chosen as The Source magazine “Man of the Year,” and in the January cover story, he says he knows his win in that category will stir controversy.
“If we win a Grammy for Best Rap Album, hip-hop is going to be heated,” he comments. “I think it should go to Kendrick…I understand why hip-hop would feel like Kendrick got robbed [if he didn’t win],” he adds. “I would love to win in a different category. We obviously had massive success on commercial radio, and I think that, in ways, The Heist was a bigger album, but Kendrick has a better rap album.”
Macklemore also defends himself against the criticism that he does belong in the rap categories.
“People are rightfully skeptical of white people making hip-hop,” he says. “Before we sold a million copies of the album, when it was just ‘Thrift Shop,’ before it became massive, they were putting us in a box. The song almost got too big. People weren’t able to see the rest of the album for what it was. They put us in the one-hit wonder box. And they didn’t give the rest of the project room to live.”
Macklemore & Lewis are also competing against Kanye West in two Grammy categories, Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song, and he says he wants to sign with West’s label and work with him.
“My goal is I want to be on G.O.O.D. Music,” he states. “That would be my ideal. But I think that, you know, I could work with Kanye without having to sign to G.O.O.D. Music. I want to build my own G.O.O.D. Music.”
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio
