Everyone seems to have an opinion on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's new nine-minute single "White Privilege II." Machine Gun Kelly offered his two cents on the song when TMZ accosted him as he walked through the airport Tuesday morning. "Race is not an issue," MGK said. "Race is an issue for people like Macklemore and shit."
Riding up the escalator in attempt to flee the TMZ reporter, the Cleveland rapper clarified his comment: "I'm comfortable in my own skin, man, I can't help other people be the same way."
MGK isn't the only rapper that "White Privilege II" rubbed the wrong way. Macklemore's call-out of Iggy Azalea in the song's second verse elicited a heated Twitter back-and-forth between Talib Kweli and Iggy. Macklemore explained his rationale for calling out Iggy in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.
"For me, that second verse is unpacking," he said. "It's an unpacking moment of internalized criticism and self-doubt, and 'What have I done,' and letting the criticism infiltrate who I am. 'Why am I insecure at a protest?' And I think that people get put into boxes, and the conversation around cultural appropriation – I was at the forefront of that, rightfully so. And that conversation also included Miley Cyrus and Iggy Azalea, and that's why their names are on the record."
Other parts of the interview are more intriguing in light of MGK's airport comments. "'Silence is an action' was a perfect representation of where I had been," Macklemore said. "So it was like, I can continue to be safe, and to rest in my privilege, and to not speak up, and the system perpetuates itself – or I can try to engage in the conversation, knowing that I don't have all the answers, knowing that I have so much to learn."
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