I still remember an evening about 10 years ago when my friend, My and I hung out on the streets of Hanoi. That day was her birthday. That evening, we went to my aunt’s house to “test” her new sound system. Whenever me and my friend listened to music together, Macklemore was on. My, my friend, introduced Macklemore to me when I was 16, she said he is a cool guy. I listened to her so I started to listen to “Can’t hold us”, “Thrift shop” which then turned to every albums he released.
At 16, I stronly believed music was only loud enough if you could feel the bass in your chest 🙃. I partly blamed my father for this, he used to do this a lot LOL. That birthday night, me and my friend made sure the bass of my aunt’s new sound touched our chests. Song after song, we lay on her living room floor, high on Ben (Macklemore)’s rap. My aunt lives in a 30-floor-apartment-complex. If me and my friend can feel the bass in our chests, many neighbours could hear our loud music. Natuarally security came knocking on my aunt’s house to tell us to tune down.
I was wondering about what my aunt would say if she knew we made security came to her apartment. Well, she already came home to find her two teenage nephews lying on her living floor, listening to deafening rap. The music was so loud we didn’t know she came home, walked pass us to go to her bedroom. Until now, I still don’t understand how me and my friend completely missed when she walked past us to come in her bedroom. I told her everything, and surprisingly, she laughed. My wonderfully sweet aunt didn’t want to disturb our music session and found it funny that the security man came in.
Fast forward to the present, I was ecstatic at Ben’s live show last week Ben, you never changed. You’re always political, always fighting for something—be it gay rights, alcohol addiction awareness, and now for what’s happening in Gaza. People already cheer when celebrities share Instagram stories about the genocide, but you turned your concert into a rallying cry. You’re crazy, and I’ve always liked you for that, Ben.
Biggest thanks to my hubby ❤️, the love of my life for arranging everything for us to enjoy the concert while I did not even know Macklemore came to Germany.
I wrote the above lines back in 2024 after coming to Macklemore’s concert in Germany. Now is September 2026, I want to put this story in this blog. Stuff just happend, Macklemore continued to stay who he is, turning every concert, every act he does to crying rally for Palestinians. He has been doing this around the world since 2024 or earlier. In September 2026, he did opening acts for Ed Sheeran. 90k people stadium, shouting Free Palestinians. Some billionaire that support Israel don’t like that, Ed Sheeran and his team decided to drop Macklemore from Ed’s concert. I feel that Ben (Macklemore) is such a beautiful human being. He is not perfect, he rapped about his dark side, going through alcohol addiction. But this is such a brave human being, always speak up about stuff that matters, even when it is inconvenient, even when he risk his own safetyness.
I see some rap fans don’t respect Macklemore, calling him corny rapping about equality and gay rights, and it got worst when he won Grammy over Kendrick Lamar with The Heist album. But rap fans, ask yourself, does your idol speak up about what is happening in the world enough? Rappers talk about their ghetto childhood, that no one can mess with them, that they are the tough top dogs. I think the real the OG tough top dogs are the ones that talk about things that matters, inequality, social matters. That’s why LOGIC, KendrickLamar and Macklemore have a good place in my head.
Love you Ben, stay who you are and stay safe.
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